Posted on 24th Mar 2010 @ 3:58 PM

Did you make it to the show?  We saw a few familiar and welcome faces again for the traditional curtain raiser for the show season.  What did you think about the show?  It is in a new location this year at Bingley Hall, we thought this was OK but it seems that the organisers were unable to get enough folk there for the event.

I have not spoken to all the traders but the few I have done report a lacklustre show.  It is not your fault, you came and saw the same traders in the same familiar format.  And lets face it, times are hard for many people at the moment but I along with a number of other traders are beginning to wonder if the shows now have the same appeal to you, the buying public, as they used to.

You are essentially being asked to pay money to shop but are you getting good value? 

Let me be honest with you.  I was a very small player in the show but this is what I did.  I started packing on Thursday, carried on during Friday, loaded the trailer Saturday morning and drove to the venue, set up the stand until about 8.00pm.  Then worked all day Sunday finally breaking the stand down about 4.30pm.  Got back to the warehouse about 9.30 pm.  My turnover for this effort was less than £750.00, so not a great return.

Success for the show is measured in various ways.  For the event organiser and traders who attend, it is the profit generated for the effort expended.  For the show visitors it is the value for money taken from the event.  Lets face it you also have to drive there and buy a ticket, pay for lunch etc.  On top of this, the traders need you to spend hard-earned cash buying our wares.  Some traders will no doubt have gone away happy, others may know it is a showcase for their product and success is measured by future business over the coming months.

I suspect the real winners are the event organisers.  Everybody who trades there has to pay a fee proportionate to the size of stand they take, often several hundred pounds running into thousands in some cases.  The same event organiser charges you money to go in to the show.  Some customers I meet belive the entrance fee is to get enough traders there, I wish.  Show lore suggests that the event organiser should be in profit before the first customer walks through the door and in most cases this achieved, when it does not happen the show is not back on again.

There are many questions and perhaps no clear-cut answers.  But for a long time now the event organisers have seen the these shows as a money-making and marketing venture often with little interest in how the traders fair or whether they are providing good value to the visitors.

Maybe the time has come for a change, what do you think.   showcomment@touring-gear.com