The Dallas Art Fair is relocating for the first time in its 19-year history, trading its longtime downtown venue for a college football practice facility at Southern Methodist University, organizers announced this week.
Starting with its April 2027 edition, the fair will take over Armstrong Fieldhouse, an indoor training facility for SMU's Mustangs, after nearly two decades at the Fashion Industry Gallery, a wholesale fashion showroom in downtown Dallas the fair has used since 2009. Organizers say the new building's single open level and higher ceilings will let galleries mount larger installations than FIG's multi-floor, column-heavy layout allowed. For the first time, the Dallas Art Fair will also share its venue with the smaller, boutique Dallas Invitational, which has run as a separate event in recent years.
"We are committed to competing at the highest level internationally, and this new venue and partnership gives us the opportunity to advance that ambition," fair co-founder John Sughrue said of the move.
The Dallas Art Fair has grown since its 2009 launch into one of the more closely watched regional fairs in the United States, credited with helping cement Dallas's standing as a collecting market beyond the coasts. Its longtime home at FIG, however, was never purpose-built for an art fair — exhibitors have long worked around low ceilings and awkward sightlines in parts of the building. The SMU site, by contrast, was designed as open athletic training space, giving organizers a blank, column-free floor to configure as needed.
The move puts the fair on a university campus for the first time, a shift organizers frame as a long-term bet on growth rather than a one-off change of address. No word yet on pricing or exhibitor numbers for the 2027 edition; a full list of participating galleries is expected closer to the spring.