Vienna hosts world's first-ever 'divorce fair'

How to split up: Vienna hosts world's first divorce fair

Kate Connolly
Saturday October 27, 2007
The Guardian

These days there is a trade fair for pretty much everything. And if you can have one for weddings, you can have one for divorces as well.
That is the message from the organisers of the world's first divorce fair, which is taking place in Vienna this weekend, aimed at helping couples make the break as painlessly as possible.

"If people untie the knot in good faith, it can turn out that the day you divorce is the best day of your life," said the organiser, Anton Barz, who also arranges wedding fairs.

The two-day fair, under the optimistic slogan New Beginning, offers couples, together or separately, the chance to talk to a variety of experts - everyone from life-planners and lawyers to private detectives.
Mr Barz believes divorce is an untapped market and aims to exploit it. He has come to the right place: almost every second marriage fails in Austria, and in Vienna, it is as many as two out of three marriages.

Several exhibitors have registered so far, including lawyers who will hold lectures on marital and family law, and mediators who will discuss "How to avoid a War of the Roses" or "Coping as a single parent".

Detectives will explain the benefits of spying on your partner while experts in DNA will be present to talk about paternity tests.

Estate agents will also get their claws in, by offering advice to couples on how best to sell the house, while a travel company is offering therapeutic package holidays for the "happily newly-divorced".

Even the Catholic church, which might well have been expected to shy away from anything to do with the commercialisation of divorce, will be present, providing representatives from the archdiocese of Vienna to talk about what they call "divorce orphans".

A visit to the event is "free, unbinding and anonymous", according to the fair's website, www.scheidungsmesse.at.

If successful, the organisers plan to make the divorce fair a twice-yearly affair.