Art fair participation impact on online attention

Art fairs are a rather important element in the art market. Hundreds of galleries and artists come together to offer art lovers a chance to appreciate and buy art, all complied in one event. With the advent of the Internet and social media platforms it is interesting to assess the impact that those events have online. Using data retrieved from Google Trends, the effect that an offline event (as an art fair) has on online attention is going to be measured. In other words, we study the impact that Art Basel Miami Beach participation might have on galleries’ and artists’ online attention. In essence the empirical findings of this dissertation suggest that there are three main conclusions: from a descriptive perspective, the time-series analysis acknowledges that participation in ABMB does not seem to have an impact on online attention; there is solely a short-term impact for galleries online attention after participating in ABMB and lastly participation in ABMB has a long-term impact on online attention for artists exhibiting in one booth with two peers or less, compared with artists that exhibit in groups of more than three artists.The findings of this dissertation suggest that there is a slight effect, however not greatly pronounced.