Illustration Exhibitions and Zine Fairs

Dates in illustration, entered by the people running them. Comic and zine fairs, gallery shows, portfolio reviews, life drawing sessions and workshops. Each listing carries the date, the venue and a link out to the organiser, which is where the sign-up and the conditions sit. Reading the list needs no account.

Illustration events are cheap to run, which is why so many of them are fairs. A zine fair is a room of trestle tables and stacks of things printed in editions of forty. A portfolio review is twenty minutes in front of an art director who has seen four hundred portfolios. A drawing night is a model, a timer and not much conversation.

Every entry points at the organiser's own page, and that is where sign-ups and any payment happen. Posting your own dates is free, and it is how most of this list gets filled. Following an event needs an account; a change to one you follow then reaches you.

Illustration has no gallery circuit to speak of, so the calendar runs on fairs, publisher launches and teaching. That makes it seasonal in an odd way: autumn is fair season because it is book season, and summer is quiet because everyone is working to an autumn deadline. Applications for a table close months before the fair itself, which is the part people miss.