In the days that followed the Art Fair became busier and busier as thousands of people walked through the doors of The Sage and admires the hundreds of pieces of art that were on show. Over the weekend the Norway2UK stand was visited by a whole host of different people. Young, old, foreign and domestic they came from everywhere each with a different connection to the art we had on show.

During the three open days we had people who had lived, visited, worked in Norway or knew friends, family or colleagues that had. It seems that the long history of Norway’s influence in the North East of England still runs deep in the veins of the people here.

Not only were the days full of new people and experiences, the nights also proved to be a greater source of excitement. After the hard days work at the Art Fair the nights gave our Norwegian visitors a taster of the famous night life and activities that Newcastle has to offer. 

On the Friday evening our artists were took under the wing of Astrid, one of the many Norwegians who now live in Newcastle. Carrying on with the art theme, they were taken to an opening of a new exhibition at a local gallery in the Gosforth area of the city. There they had the chance to admire other peoples work from the area and they could see someone else working and talking about their art for a change. To give them a little taste of home they also got a bit of strong Norwegian coffee, which they had craved since landing.

Saturday night was a slight change of pace. After closing up shop we all took a short walk over the river across The Millennium Bridge that has become so iconic on the Newcastle/Gateshead quayside to one of the most popular bars in the city. In a roped off VIP area in The Pitcher and Piano were chilled bottles of wine and no empty seats. As people working on galleries at different ends of The Sage had to the chance to socialise and swap stories of the weekend. The minutes quickly turned into hours and the bottle of wine soon was two and three. As the bar began to quieten down soon we headed with the famous Norwegian stamina taking us to the end of the night and in some cases into the very early morning.

Sunday, unfortunately, was the day when everything had to come to an end. Come 17.00 the visitors had been replaced with removal men and I had once again found myself up a ladder with a screwdriver in my hand removing the art I had put up 4 days earlier. With everything packed away the next thing to do was to take our artists back to the hotel where they could be fed and watered ready for the return journey. 

Monday morning was much like the morning of their arrival, the cloud covered the sky with the sun beginning to burn through warming the chilled morning air. As the artist flew back to normality, as did I, already thinking about a bigger and better event for next year.