Started in 1971 in St.Paul’s Hall the Ballarat Antique Fair has had quite a few moves and expanded to become Australia’s largest and longest running antique fair.
In 1971 when the antique trade was still in it’s infancy a dozen or so dealers were brought together for the first Ballarat Antique Fair. Some of the early exhibitors included long standing dealers, Jean Holmes, Ian Redpath, Spencer Sandilands and Graham Geddes.
In 1978 the fair moved to St.Patrick’s Hall in the middle of Ballarat and expanded to around 25 dealers where it
continued into the 1990’s. With a large number of extra exhibitors wanting to participate the fair expanded to include the Masonic hall across the road in the mid 1990’s.
The exhibitor list now was up to around 45 dealers and the patrons moved from venue to venue to view and make purchases.
This worked well for about 4 years until the Masonic Hall became unavailable, and more space was needed to fit in more exhibitors wanting to participate.
In the late 1990’s the Civic Hall in Mair Street was taken on as well as St.Patricks Hall, this was about 6 blocks away but was large enough to include another 35 exhibitors. This brought the exhibitor list up to around 70 dealers. A shuttle bus ran between venues and this worked well and sales and patronage continued to increase. After 3 years in both venues the City council decided to redevelop the Civic Hall and said it would no longer be available. With still more exhibitors wanting participate in the fair, and no other city venues available it was decided to move the event lock, stock and barrel to one venue capable of housing it under one roof.