You founded The Other Art Fair in 2011, and it subsequently developed into an international platform. More than a decade later, you're launching Fair Play. What motivated you to return to the art fair business, and what did you want to approach differently this time?​

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When I started The Other Art Fair in 2011, I had a lot of friends who were artists, and they were all facing similar challenges: finding opportunities, selling their work and meeting people who could support their careers.

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Rather than having lots of small exhibitions happening independently across London, I thought it would be interesting to bring around 150 artists together in one space and create an accessible, exciting environment around their work. I'd previously worked on Art HK, before it was acquired by Art Basel, so I had some understanding of how an art fair operated.

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I sold The Other Art Fair to Saatchi Art in 2016 and continued running it for another eight years. At one point, we were organising around twelve fairs annually, across cities including Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Dallas, Chicago, London, Sydney and Melbourne. When I left two years ago, I genuinely thought I wouldn't return to the art fair world. But I missed it.

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I also had all this experience, and years of feedback from both artists and visitors, which made me think about how the business model could evolve.

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With The Other Art Fair, selected artists paid for their booths, much like exhibitors at a traditional art fair. With Fair Play, we're approaching things differently. Artists apply, they're selected, and if they're successful, they're offered exhibition space without an upfront booth fee. From the visitor's perspective, I also wanted to respond to the feeling that many fairs have become too large, with too many people and too much artwork.

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Fair Play is intentionally smaller, with 70 artists. It's more carefully curated, and it creates a different relationship between us and the artists. We're selecting people because we genuinely believe in their work, rather than because we're selling them exhibition space.That changes the whole dynamic.

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​One of Fair Play's most interesting propositions is its economic model. With no upfront booth fees, you're effectively transferring part of the financial risk from artists to the organisers. How does this work commercially, and what makes the model sustainable?​

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Our main revenue stream comes from commissions on artwork sales. We take a 42% commission, plus VAT. In that sense, we're operating almost like a large gallery. But there's an important difference: the artist is there, speaking directly to visitors and developing relationships with buyers.

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n a traditional gallery arrangement, the gallery can sometimes act as a gatekeeper. Artists don't necessarily know who's buying their work, and they don't always have the opportunity to build those relationships themselves. At Fair Play, artists are present throughout the event. They speak to visitors, explain their work and facilitate their own sales.

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We want those relationships to develop beyond the fair. Ideally, someone who buys a work becomes a genuine supporter of that artist's practice. We also generate some revenue through sponsorship. For example, we're working with an independent tequila brand, El Rayo, which is creating a pop-up margarita bar as part of the programme. But fundamentally, the commercial model is based on selling art. It means we're working together with the artists, rather than simply selling them a space.

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How do you select the participating artists? If an emerging artist wanted to exhibit at Fair Play, what would the application process look like?

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The open call launched about six months before the fair. Artists apply online and submit their work. The selection committee then goes through each artist in detail, to understand the work and what they are proposing, and chooses the 70. It's important that we really believe in the artists we select. Because we're not charging upfront booth fees, the process is driven by the work itself rather than an artist's ability to pay for participation.

Fair Play opens in the same week as Frieze London, PAD and 1-54, all built around established collectors. Where does a fair of independent artists sit in that week, and who is it for?

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Frieze is such a huge event in the London calendar. That week, everyone in the city knows about it, from the serious collector to someone who has never bought an artwork. There has to be something for everyone. Frieze, PAD and 1-54 are great for collectors. The general public also needs somewhere they feel welcome, where they can walk around, connect with a work and buy it. We offer that.

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We are also strategically placed on the corner of Regent's Park. Talking to galleries at Frieze is one experience. Meeting artists is another, and people who are seriously interested in art want that too. A collector in town for the week wants to know what is happening in the London scene. Few have time to drive to an open studio in Peckham or Hackney Wick. They can walk two minutes from the front door of Frieze, and we have already selected 70 of the best artists making work in London now. The artists are there the whole time. They stand in front of their work, talk to visitors and make the sales themselves.

Galleries and advisers have long been the bridge between artist and collector. A younger generation increasingly buys straight from the studio, and the market appears to be shedding its intermediaries. Do you see that shift in your own data?

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​This morning I listened to a podcast with Clare McAndrew, who writes the Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report. One figure stood out: 70 per cent of collectors had bought work directly from an artist's studio. It shows how much people want to connect with artists themselves, without a gallery or an adviser in between. At The Other Art Fair, our research showed that 52 per cent of the visitors who bought a work had never bought one before. You are creating a new generation of buyers. The report's headline about Gen Z becoming the biggest market is slightly flawed, though. Respondents had to hold a net wealth of over a million dollars. They already sit well beyond Gen Z as a whole.

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​Major fairs such as Frieze and Art Basel still carry considerable prestige, even as participation becomes increasingly expensive for galleries. Do you think that recognition matters as much to younger collectors?

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Not many galleries actually make a profit from exhibiting. But there is a certain credibility that comes with saying you've been selected to show at one of these big fairs. I don't think that always resonates with a younger buying audience. It doesn't necessarily mean anything to them. For older collectors, sure. But people now are more interested in meeting an artist, learning about their process, going to their studio and following them on Instagram.

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You have suggested that the next adviser may be an AI. A collector can already ask a model for the most compelling contemporary artists working in Cambodia and receive a list in seconds. What does the art business look like in ten years?

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It is a really interesting question, and I don't think anyone has figured it out yet. What I am passionate about is people connecting directly with artists. Everything we are building points that way.

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One of the challenges for emerging collectors is that traditional art spaces can sometimes feel intimidating. How do you create an environment that encourages people not only to discover art, but to feel comfortable buying it?

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The first stage is creating a marketing campaign that inspires people to buy a ticket and come through the door. But I've always been fascinated by what happens once they're inside. What kind of environment are you creating? How do you make people feel comfortable?

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At Fair Play, all the artworks have visible prices. We're also introducing a digital purchasing system where every artwork has its own QR code. You can speak to the artist, discover a painting you love, scan the code and purchase the work directly from your phone. You could potentially take it home and have it hanging on your wall within twenty minutes. I think that simplicity is particularly appealing to younger audiences.

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We're also creating an environment with music, food, drinks and performances. It's supposed to be enjoyable. So many art events can feel unnecessarily formal or intimidating. People sometimes feel uncomfortable asking the price of an artwork because they assume it's too expensive, or they feel they're somehow not qualified to buy it. It's extraordinary when you think about it. Art is one of the few industries where people can feel they have to prove they're worthy of making an expensive purchase. We want to remove that feeling.