Auction houses and art galleries turning to virtual salesrooms to help them survive
Scotland’s oldest auction house, Lyon & Turnbull is one of the firms embracing clever techniques to attract customers unable to visit the salerooms with potential buyers taking part in virtual walk through tours and viewing the items on sale in the showroom. The lots displayed in the showroom are filmed then uploaded to the website so viewers on laptops can stroll around, stopping to click on objects for more information.
“Online is essentially the main way of selling now,” says Gavin Strang, managing director. “Everything has become digital and the number of people that have engaged in auctions has increased enormously over the course of the year as a result of covid conditions. There has been a mini boom in the auction business and our figures show that visitor numbers, and buyers were on the increase thanks to the digital format.”
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Hide AdWith increased engagement levels thanks to the technology that was first used by estate agents, Scotland’s oldest auction house has seen a rise in bidder numbers by 40% compared to last year and 60% of auction purchases are now made using online bidding options, a rise of 25% on 2019. This includes a record breaking £125,000 for a rare first edition of Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone.
“The Harry Potter first edition was at the height of lockdown, bought by someone on the other side of the world, bidding via one of the platforms that feed into us,” says Strang. “The software has been around but the use of it by auction houses and galleries has increased exponentially this year.”
Since lockdown all of Lyon & Turnbull’s sales have been live only events done in real time over the internet as under the tightest restrictions viewing in person became impossible.
“Everything had to be done remotely, so we thought presenting the saleroom all laid out for sale would be a great way of making people feel like they were there and it would give them a better feeling for the scale of things,” says Strang.
“We were trailblazers back in April when we flipped what was going to be a traditional auction to live online. I had a 12-hour marathon in the rostrum alone selling online and it could have been terrible, but we gambled it wouldn’t be, and we were right. It really paid off and ever since then we’ve been refining what we do to make it better with the 3D tours.”
After taking the tour, anyone interested in bidding is offered a range of options from more traditional commission and telephone bidding to joining the auctions live through a number of live bidding platforms.
Instead of a packed saleroom full of clients and staff, this sees Strang and another staff member in the saleroom and the rest of the team at home facilitating the bids via Zoom and Microsoft Teams, beaming them into a single screen and Strang’s earpiece.
“It’s been a revolution. Far from killing the excitement, it changed the atmosphere entirely. You no longer see your clients in front of you, you imagine them at the end of the camera, and the bidding has been very, very strong.”
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Hide AdFor their December Scottish Paintings & Sculpture auction potential buyers were able to wander around the historic Edinburgh saleroom from the comfort of their own home, viewing items such as watercolour views of a bustling Old Town with Edinburgh Castle in the distance by Louise Rayner, (1829-1924), which fetched £6,250, and a vivid still life oil painting of flowers by John Bellany (1942-2013), which raised £8,125.
“At the moment people can come in and view the objects by appointment with a limited number at certain times, but most look online and take the tour. For the Scottish Painting sale where 2000 looked online we would be lucky if 200 people came to view in the saleroom in Broughton Place.”
The auction house’s modern Scottish art sale next month will also be filmed and ready for a virtual tour over the Christmas break.
“In March we were all full of fear thinking how on earth is anything going to survive, but by mid summer we’d worked out a formula for presenting options online and developed it from there. Since then there’s been a real boom in auction sales and we’ve been one of the lucky industries. I do feel for so many others, but our industry has been resilient and actually thrived in the lockdown.”
“Both the selling rates and the average lot values are higher than in a pre-Covid world. Whether that’s because there are fewer places to spend money at the moment, we’ll find out in the fullness of time. But it’s certainly been a seismic change in our business.”
Another factor leading to the auction boom is increased time at home due to Covid leading to people rearranging their living arrangements and also taking stock of their lives.
“They’re moving house, don’t want to live in the city any more, talking to children about the future and if they don’t want their collections or antiques we’ve seen a lot of stuff come on the market,” says Strang.
Strang does not expect things to go back to the way they were pre-Covid, predicting that virtual tours and online auctions are here to stay.
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Hide Ad“I suspect people will be more and more online because why come to a saleroom for a whole day if you’re interested in two lots when you can be on your phone anywhere, and if you trust the technology it’s just a swipe of your thumb to bid. I suspect it’s part and parcel of the future and like other industries, auctioneering will have changed dramatically for good.”
The Lyon & Turnbull virtual tours are made by 3D VR Surveys Ltd, an Edinburgh firm run by Calum and Karen Bennett.
“It’s a busy market,” says Bennett. “First The Fine Art Society approached us, then Lyon & Turnbull and The Scottish Gallery, then the Kilmorack Gallery in Inverness. It’s the art establishment that has taken off with us, rather than estate agencies, for viewing auctions and exhibitions.
“It’s delivering them more and more clients and they’re selling internationally - Australia, the US, Hong Kong, all online, in places where they didn’t have a market before.”
“Virtual tours give a better perception of scale than a website -a bit like when people find the Mona Lisa’s small in reality. With this they can see how something looks in a room and stop and take a closer look.”
With Covid restrictions set to continue into the new year Bennett sees business building in the future.
“We have bookings for the next year because people find it very economical, typically costing £200-£240.
A structural engineer by trade, with his background in commercial property, residential markets and construction, Bennett could see the benefits of 3D VR Surveying technology in engineering and invested in a camera from California-based Matterport three years ago. Now his sideline has taken off, with wife Karen wielding the camera and scanning items in situ.
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Hide Ad“I bought it for about £5,000 for engineering purposes as a glorified tape measure. It was a kind of hobby or side business but with lockdown it became more popular and mainstream. Karen is a graphic designer with a degree in history of art and studied art restoration, so was delighted when this came along. Now she runs this side of the business. It turned out we were ahead of the curve.”