Sydney is to get its own contemporary art fair. These vast supermarkets for selling art are ever more popular: the past two months alone have seen the inaugural New York edition of the London-based Frieze in May; Art HK in Hong Kong just two weeks later; and Art Basel in Switzerland, the grandest modern and contemporary fair of them all, earlier this month. Galleries that took part in all three describe the gruelling sequence as a “marathon”.

For galleries wanting to tap into the growing Australian market, the marathon is about to get even longer. The first edition of the biennial Sydney Contemporary will take place next year, from April 12-14. It will start modestly, according to British founder Tim Etchells, who runs an event management company in Australia. He expects about 70 galleries, mostly from Australia and New Zealand, with a sprinkling of international ones from countries such as Indonesia and Singapore.

“We’d like to get some of the high-end galleries in Sydney like Roslyn Oxley [whose programme focuses on artists from the Asia-Pacific region] and Anna Schwartz [who represents British artists Antony Gormley and Yinka Shonibare, among others] – so far we’ve had a pretty positive response,” says Etchells.