Modernism Fall Preview Event continues to expand

Modernism Week in Palm Springs is an 11-day celebration of everything mid-century modern that brings in roughly 10,000 people to the Coachella Valley.

“You have dealers from all over the world. You are going to see things that you normally wouldn’t see in person,” James Claude, President of the A-LA-Mod Gallery downtown, told KESQ News Channel 3’s and CBS Local 2’s Katie Widner.

The Fall Preview aims to give the public a taste of what’s to come during the bigger event.

“It’s just a way for people to experience what is going to happen in the Spring,” said CEO of Modernism Week, Chris Mobley.
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The 2017 event included an extra day to accommodate all of the interest.

“The Fall Preview event is becoming a viable stand-alone event on its own, not just a preview of February, and it just continues to pick up steam,” said Gordon Merkle, who helps to produce the Palm Springs Modernism Show and Sale.

The four-day event featured forty vendors from as far away as Paris and London and more than 6,000 attendees from all over the U.S. It is currently only a tenth of the size of the Spring event, but if it continues to grow, it could become a full-fledged ordeal.

“It could end up being like the February event, but we’ll try to keep it at four days for now,” said Mobley.

Either way, the events are good for the local economy.

“It’s going to be good for my business, for the restaurants and the hotels,” Claude said. “People will come to this show and I will get calls and emails throughout the rest of the year saying, ‘I saw your booth.'”

Modernism Week will kick off on February 16. The 2018 convention will include a new satellite event called the Palm Springs Modern-Design Expo.