Results of the Third All-Russian Forum "Framing Business in Russia"

Results of the Third All-Russian Forum "Framing Business in Russia"

September, as usual, was the time of the Third All-Russian Forum “Framing Business in Russia" the major event of the framing market. The event took place in St. Petersburg, which defined the additional program of the event. The framers enjoyed an excursion to the Russian Museum carried out by Oxana Lysenko, Russia's leading expert in the domain of frame history, a master class in the workshop "Petersburg Frames and Moulding", as well as a master class by Ayvar Pozharsky.

For the major program of the Forum workshops, the house was full. The most commented speeches were delivered by: the Forum's Special Guest, Steven McKee (Great Britain), Yuri Mironov (General Director of NormaGlass Ltd.), Monique Van den Hurk (Director of MAY Ltd.), Ayvar Pozharsky (Art-Frame Ltd.), Denis Spirin (business consultant) and Valery Domashenko (Head of Blogger School).

«I really enjoyed the program of the second day of the Forum. The reports are of a very high level, one can see the speakers are highly qualified and their reports are well prepared, the information is well delivered and the ambience is very positive. The most useful were the reports by Valery Domashenko and Denis Spirin. And I would like to see more people speaking about advertisement, marketing, economics and business planning", was the opinion of a representative of Artrika Inc. (Ekaterinburg). For Natalia Zavyalova from Chelyabinsk, this was the first time at the Forum, "For me the trip was a success. It was interesting for everyone, both for beginners and for more experienced colleagues. The speakers were great!"

Tatiana Abramova, Frame Design Studio “Color Dreams" from Angarsk, most of all, enjoyed the speeches by Ayvar Pozharsky (technologies of framing needlework), Steven McKee (mount design) and Denis Spirin ("Marginal analysis of a frame workshop assortment"). She says, "The Talk Show is a very important new feature of the Forum. It would be better to organize more than one, covering different topics. It is a perfect opportunity to share experience, ask important questions and get the answers from people, who have had their own negative experience. It is very motivating and inspiring!".

The director of «ArtBaget" (Samara), Victor Chechnev, attended the Forum for the first time. "Last year, my employee was in Forum. I am very content with the event format. It is very well organized, and there is a lot of interesting information. The relations between the organizers and the framers are incredibly warm and friendly. I will always participate only in your event!". Ayvar Pozharsky, «Art-Frame", St. Petersburg: "A lot of interesting information and novelties. For me, the real discovery of this show was the plastic frame by Meander Ltd. It was designed in Russia and is surprisingly better than European production! Scappi Cartoni passe partout carton is also very good. In my opinion, their production has no match at the Russian market in the regard of price/performance ratio and of carton sheet size. The St. Petersburg Company "AlfaArt" showed a Slovenian wooden frame, and their prices, quality and assortment would satisfy 90% of the needs of any framer. I became their client a while ago and I am very content with our cooperation. The company got well prepared to the exhibition, bringing a lot of novelties here, and if they keep working like this, they have fabulous perspectives! I loved the LOMOND printing materials and their craquele finishes. Giuliano Barbon's master classes with Borma materials were splendid. I also loved the Marvy markers. TAIR got very well prepared for the master classes. Although I know this company for a long time, I had never used their materials before, but now I definitely will! I've seen the capacities of their materials and I admire them!

The organizers made a real holiday for us, although they are all very tired! According to the comments after the first day of the Forum, everyone who visited the Russian Museum, Petersburg Frame and my workshop, enjoyed the program very much, and those who didn't make it, regret having missed the opportunity.

Unfortunately I couldn't listen to all the seminars, but all the information is very interesting and useful. And the main advantage of this Forum was making people finally realize the necessity to consolidate and unite to solve our common problems, which resulted in the creation of the Framer Guild at the Association of Participants Art Industry Market. The work carried out by the Association during last year is impressive, admirable, surprising, and if I didn't know for sure, I would nave never believed it was possible!"

The Forum-2012 was visited by owners, directors and employees of 186 frame workshops from 70 Russian cities, as well as from Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Lithuania. Wholesale and manufacturing companies from Italy, the Czech Republic, China, Germany, India, Ukraine and Russia participated in the event.

Piero Pea, Studio Rufus Cavalli & Poli frames srl, Italy: «Of course, when I just came here I expected the exhibition to be more imposing, with more publicity. But the people who are present here are very interested in what they are doing. And it is fabulous for the Participants. There are only target visitors here, and we don't have to spend our time on people who just came to watch. The less uninterested people there are at the exhibition, the more time we exponents have for each interested customer".

Dmitry Mironov, «MironovStudio", Moscow:"I came to the exhibition to find a distributor for my fabulous production. Part of the collection that I brought here, is to stay in St. Petersburg and will appear in shops on Monday. Some large networks have already demonstrated their interest for my frames. So for me the exhibition was a success. I had no illusions but secretly I did expect large furniture centers to visit the exhibition, and thanks to the organizers' advertisement campaign, such clients did come and I could accomplish all my tasks. My company is more of interior business than framing but it was a nice surprise for me that regional workshops are also ready to sell my frames".

Shagen Sarmosyan, Meander Ltd., Armavir: "It is our first time at such an exhibition, and we haven't been working in the framing industry for a long time. We started to produce plastic frames for pictures and never regretted it! We have met a lot of people here, including those who we knew by correspondence. We have clearly understood the market needs and we are going to try to satisfy them as soon as possible. The only word people had for our frames was WOW! No complaints, not a single negative word. We intend to work in all of Russia and CIS. The most important thing is to keep the level up, and all the clients will be ours!"

Sergey Maratkanov, Design Inter Trade Ltd. (Tolyatti): «The ambience of the event is very pleasant. We have achieved a lot. Our booth turned out to be the largest one with Equipment and a good frame collection. On the first day, we had the largest number of visitors that we ever had, even in comparison with last year. We had no time to sit down, let alone visiting any workshops! On the second day my dream came true: I watched and video recorded master class in gilding ".

Doubtlessly, the Forum would have been much more vivid and spectacular if the four major companies (NeoArt, Lion Artservice, Videca and Interquadrum) had not decided to confront other frame wholesale companies and hadn't organized their own show in Moscow. We could not neglect this and asked the same question to everyone: what was their attitude to the two shows? Here are the answers:

Erminio Naibo, BUBOLA e NAIBO s. r.l (Italy): «The St. Petersburg Forum was very worthy. I saw that the event format had been reorganized. I've talked to my foreign colleagues who took part in it, and everyone is quite satisfied with the exhibition hall organization and with their participation. 100% of the work was done. I couldn't complain about the number of visitors - I had enough, but for me it was a shame that two Forums were taking place at the same time. I never thought such a thing was possible and hoped that a compromise could be found until the very end. My colleagues who also participated in the Moscow Forum came here, and their impressions from the competitors event are not very reassuring! The event was organized by several large importers that decided to close the access to the Russian market to all other companies that wanted to trade in Russia. Thus they showed that they have no open market approach even in their thoughts. They must have forgotten that they are in a country with 143 million inhabitants and with framing industry in embryo state! When you have such potential, it is better to act jointly, uniting everyone's efforts to form consumption culture and demand, to expand everyone's possibilities. In this case, division into two events only takes place because of someone being afraid that their clients will be taken away. I hope that next year they will be able to find a common solution and there will be a united event. And this year many foreign companies who wanted to participate, did not come for the only reason that there were steady rumors that there would be no participants nor visitors at the Petersburg Forum. They even kept saying that no large framing companies were planning to take part in the St. Petersburg Forum, and that there would only be a small company BUBOLA e NAIBO, that does not produce anything but only sells other companies' frames! (Quoting message from Vasily Orekhanov, director of Interquadrum Ltd. at the forum www. art-frame. ***** on 16.09.2012 –: «The only Italian manufacturer from our list does not really produce frames. They buy them and then deliver fabricated frames to OBI", editor's note). That's why the first thing I want to tell is that our factory has 70 employees, its area makes up 14 thousand m2, and we export our production to 52 countries of the world. And I don't understand how someone dares to write such things! This proves the attempts to discredit the Saint Petersburg Forum. This gentleman was in our factory and saw it all with his own eyes! He knows perfectly well how we work!

I hope that, as we Italians say, «the tomb of the past will be covered with stones". And that next year we will take part in a united event, no matter which city will be hosting it!"

Giuliana Marioni, Scappi Cartoni s. r.l., Italy: «We came here because we were very content with last year's Forum, and we didn't make a mistake this time! The event is well organized, there are many interesting people and I'm sure that it will be a commercial success. But two Forums are impossible! The frame market in Russia is very small, and dividing it into two parts is incredible and irresponsible! In Italy there was a similar problem when two business groups decided to hold their events at the same time, but they managed to find a solution and the exhibition in Italy remained united! Today's situation at the Russian market is not good, and there can be no winners! There will be winners, when everyone unites their efforts to make the market grow, diversify and strengthen. I recommend that the efforts should be united to make the market go ahead!"

Monique Van den Hurk Director of MAY Ltd (Germany): "I can't understand why the four wholesale companies have organized their own show?! Customers is what business is all about, not suppliers or manufacturers, which suffered from not being able to visit the two events at the same time and missing all the diversity they could have seen! All my foreign colleagues who came here from Moscow had no positive comments about the Moscow Forum. Everyone is unanimous that there should only be one forum. Please do your best to make it happen.

As for the St. Petersburg Forum, I can say it was well organized, and I was glad to see participants from many countries (not only from Russia, but also from Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania and Kazakhstan), and it is great!"

Vladimir Rud, Art Profile Ltd., Belgorod: "Thank you! Taking into consideration the circumstances of the Forum preparation, I believe it was a great success. Yes, there were less people than usual, but there were participants from many countries and everything was very well organized. However, if the Big Four confrontation continues, I suggest that we organize the next year's Forum next door to the competitors. Artindustry Magazine and the Association of Participants Art Industry Market has a serious competitor at the market, and you have proved it once more. So I am sure the next Forum will be even more successful, and we wholesalers are going to support you.

Two Forums are a huge mistake from any point of view! And the attempt to divide the market is not the only mistake. The main thing is they gained nothing, moreover, they have made small and medium wholesalers move, for everyone felt their businesses were threatened and will be more active in their struggle to win a place under the sun. Look what's happening: there are new manufacturers, and Chinese, Indian, Italian factories came here and they do not care that in Forum do not take part four largest Russian distributors! So Forum in Moscow was a mistake. They did not gain anything, they only lost clients and framing workshops. This segregation only made us move. If it hadn't been for this situation, you would have had to spend ages persuading me to join the Association, and there is little chance I would have agreed. And today look at me and the most of people who are present here having decided to join the Association, for we realized that we will be stronger at the market as wholesalers if we unite. Framers understood the Association's advantage: it prevents monopolization, situations when 3-4 companies dictate to everyone what to buy, where, for what price and at what conditions. The market must have free competition! Everyone must have the right of choice, not only large companies. And small frame workshops should decide themselves who and how they will work with".

Alexey Isachenko, «DecArtRus", Moscow: "It is the first time we take part in the exhibition, and we are quite content. But two Forums are good for no one. The market is not organized without it, how could they demoralize and deorganize it more? They must do the contrary: unite efforts, create mass, business loud, interesting format. So everyone lost due to this situation".

Victor Chechnev, "ArtBaget" (Samara): "I don't understand the main suppliers leaving us framers. The original idea of uniting and creating a forum belonged to "ArtIndustry", so it's you who has all the rights for the project. Okay, the large wholesalers wanted to redivide us - but do we want to be divided, and will we? So let's see what happens at the fourth Forum. Today we appoint the Heads of the newly established Framers Guild and will watch them working this year. Everything done by the organizers of the Moscow Forum is only copying ArtIndustry".

Sergey Maratkanov, Design Inter Trade Ltd. (Tolyatti): «Of course there must be one Forum with equal conditions for each participant. Everything must be clear, fair and friendly. Any unfair decisions make people protest and divide. It harms the entire frame market. It disorients both customers and suppliers. Let the market decide who's better and who's worse. For it is competition that makes us work at our best, improve the quality and speed of our work. It makes us search for and install new technologies, new materials, innovative equipment, frames and mounting board. And any monopoly leads to stagnation and too high prices.

I feel this year will be crucial, that it will never be the same again. Look at the dynamic, at the number of novelties! Look at new Russian frame manufacturers. It will develop and be very fruitful. You did we'll opening the Forum. Exhibitions are one of the most important resources of information about novelties and goods. Tpand the organizers should be equally open and friendly to each company that wants to take part in the Forum. And it's better for the organizer not to be a wholesaler. Otherwise, they would not be able to resist the temptation to get non-market benefits for their companies".

Fourth All-Russian Forum “Framing Business in Russia" - will be held in September 2013 again in Moscow and we invite you to participate!

Our General Partner for the participation of foreign companies – Publifiere S. r.l.

Contact the Organizer (Russia):

Association of Participants Art Industry Market

+5-46,

*****@***ru

http://www. forum. *****