WILTON, CONN. — The Wilton Historical Society and Barn Star Productions have announced that the Wilton Fall Antiques Market benefiting the society, which was scheduled for Saturday, October 29, at the society’s museum on Route 7, has been cancelled due to insufficient exhibitor participation.
The show was formerly conducted at the Wilton High School Field House for more than a decade, and both Barn Star and the society were excited at giving the event a fresh new look as well as avoiding some of the conflicts with sports activities at the high school that bedeviled scheduling. The historical society suggested looking at the museum facilities as a viable new location for the event, with the museum’s period buildings and barns providing a pleasing setting for displaying Americana.
Gaglio expected to fill these spaces with about 39 exhibitors, but as of the last week in September had only 14 dealers signed up to participate. “This is an extremely tough decision,” said Gaglio, “as we had some excellent dealers who eagerly signed up early, but we simply cannot run the show with 14 exhibitors.”
In a letter to his dealers informing them of the decision to cancel the fall show, Gaglio wrote, “We were all extremely enthused and excited about the potential facelift the move to the society property would have given the show; however, after the initial rush of dealers signing up — and may I add some very significant dealers — the calls dropped off and even after numerous solicitations, emails, phone calls and personal appeals, the numbers did not increase. We needed 30 dealers just to make our expense budget, which would have included advertising, tents, flooring, heating, show program, etc.”
“We have tried so hard,” Gaglio told Antiques and The Arts Weekly. “Wilton has been a wonderful project that has helped support the historical society for decades. Regretfully, some antiques shows run their course and the one-day Wilton fall show may be one more in that category.”
For information, www.barnstar.com, 845-876-0616 or www.wiltonhistorical.org.
