Doing an art fair has always been a financial gamble for galleries, but never more so than in 2026. With sales no longer reliably covering the high cost of participation, more dealers are taking matters into their own hands and launching alternatives of their own—in unconventional places.
A fair in the back of a fleet of moving trucks? Inside a decommissioned bank? What about an abandoned villa? Welcome to the era of the DIY art fair, where the stakes are lower, the vibe is improvisational, and the goal is to bring fun back to trade shows that have become increasingly corporate over the past two decades.
While dealers have designed art fairs of their own for decades—what is now known as the Armory Show was founded by Colin De Land, Pat Hearn, Lisa Spellman, Matthew Marks, and Paul Morris in 1994 in the Gramercy Park Hotel—a fresh crop is emerging in London and Paris this year alongside Frieze and Art Basel. Their goal is to make room for emerging voices while, at the same time, sending the industry’s biggest players a message about what galleries today really need from art fairs.
Lowering costs is an important part. “We’re run-and-gun indie galleries,” says gallerist Jonny Tanna of the outfits that take part in Minor Attractions, the London event he cofounded in 2023 to serve scrappy exhibitors that either can’t get into, or can’t afford, the more corporate fairs. A booth in the emerging sector of Frieze or Art Basel can cost upwards of $10,000, while the biggest booths in the main section go for north of $100,000—and that’s before factoring in shipping and storage.
Held in the Newman Hotel this year, a half-room at Minor Attractions costs £4,250 (around $5,650), and international galleries can also save on accommodations by sleeping in the rooms. The idea was “to create somewhere people have access and a little more financial freedom, which allows for a bit more risk and experimentation,” Tanna says. While these fairs may not reliably bring in the highest-net-worth collectors, dealers aren’t under the same pressure to make tens of thousands of dollars just to come out even. Still, sales have been solid, particularly outside conventional business hours, when everyone is in a more relaxed mood.
Unlike Frieze or Art Basel, which are controlled by investors and expected to turn a profit, most of the alternatives are mission-driven, or carry official nonprofit status, like NADA, a gallerist-led fair founded in 2002 to address issues of “accessibility, representation, and community-building,” according to executive director Heather Hubbs. However, the recent wave of dealer-led fairs are answering a “different set of demands” she says, namely “an urgent need for affordability, strategies to navigate an oversaturated global calendar, and a distinct movement toward sustainability and individuality.”
Other new formats are aimed at improving the experience for participating galleries. Gallerist Chris Sharp is bringing the first edition of his LA-founded Post fair to Paris during Art Basel, after leading two editions of another indie fair in the city, Place des Vosges. The 35-gallery fair includes established businesses who want something serious but are unhappy with the corporate fair experience.
Sharp sees events like this as a “temporary crisis solution” at a time when an older alternative fair like Paris Internationale has “gotten quite expensive for what it is.” The floor for taking part in Paris Internationale is €398 ($458) per square meter compared to £276 ($373) per square meter at Frieze in 2025 (Frieze declined to confirm booth prices for 2026). “The art fair model, it works,” he says. But “we’ve been in this crisis moment for three years now and the main fairs have not adjusted.”
Booth fees aren’t the only problem, as the big fairs’ own attempts to fix them have shown. In 2019, Art Basel said it would charge the largest galleries more in order to subsidize the cost of smaller dealers, and Frieze partners with fashion brand Stone Island to subsidize its emerging section. Still, smaller galleries have struggled to cover the ballooning travel, shipping and storage costs.
Sharp also pointed to small charges that can frustrate galleries, such as corporate fairs billing “thousands of dollars” for an extra light. “We don’t nickel and dime people,” he says, adding that Post’s fees ($6,000 for galleries and $4,000 for project spaces) include storage. “We treat exhibitors as we’d like to be treated.”
A similar philosophy informs The Invitational, which dealer James Cope is bringing to the Chancery Rosewood for the first time during Frieze London. The event will offer more bespoke service to its 12 participating galleries, including hosting dinners and events at collectors’ homes. “You can’t do that if you’re Basel and dealing with 300 galleries,” Cope says.
Collectors, too, are hungry for a better experience, Cope notes, observing that many of his clients are opting out of the big fairs these days and sending advisors in their place. “They don’t want to deal with the crowds,” he says. He is betting they can be lured more easily to a smaller hotel fair that isn’t “herding people through turnstiles.”
Elsewhere, gallerist Javier Calderón is confronting the fact that the increasingly globalized fair circuit leaves little room for marginal voices with Paraíso, a new Latin American art fair held at Ambika P3, a 10-minute walk from Frieze London.
While the largest Latin American galleries may appear at Frieze, they are “an exception,” Calderón says. Hosting 22 galleries as well as 12 independent artists from countries with less developed gallery infrastructures like Ecuador and Peru, he has also included a selection of video art from Central America as part of an effort to represent as broad a swath of Latin America as possible.
The aim of the event is to “support the ecosystem and new generations,” he says, rather than to make a profit. The gallerist is funding the fair with personal savings and small grants, while charging galleries as little as possible, with fees not exceeding £3,000 (under $4,000). “We let them show whatever they want to, they are not restricted to what is more likely to sell,” he says.
For Calderón, the failings of the established fair circuit come down to its priorities. “An art fair is very similar to a gambling house: the house always wins,” he says. “There are a few other winners, but between these parties, there are so many losers.”
If the art world cares to spread the wealth, events like these offer an alternative to the winner-take-all model—and challenge us to rethink just who the global fair circuit is built to serve.
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