Shor t memories

GTN’s Editor, Trevor Pfeiffer, comments on the discussions about the timing of trade shows

I’ve been attending Glee since 1988,when I became a junior publisher of Garden Trade News and every year there has always been chatter about the size of the show, the numbers and quality of the audience and often about the date of the show However, this year I was struck by the volume of discussion and sometimes quite vitriolic comment about the timing of Glee

At GTN we try our hardest not to report on speculation and general gossip and instead stakeour reputation on bringing you stories basedonfact with reportsonactual ideas and inspiration happening in the market As many of youwill knowwe are also media partners of both Glee and SOLEX, so any comment we make may be construed as biased What follows is comment from me, Trevor Pfeiffer, based on my recollections over the past 35 years, with the sole intention of helping to make all trade shows for our industry successful forboth exhibitors andretailers,highlighting some past actions and trendsthat are perhaps being missed Many in our industry appear to have short memories

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: the timing of Glee Despite many exhibitors telling me at the end of Glee 2023 they had had a very successful show, if I had received £10 for every time someone told me it should be in September, I could have doubled the money raised for Greenfingers on Floral Thursday!

Some of thecomments about moving back to September were based on the fact that Glee in September 2021 was their most successful Glee ever and neither of the June eventssince then matched that Does that mean they have forgotten that Glee in September 2021 was the first show post Covid, when everyone met up for the first time since lockdowns and went mad, buying more than ever before to make sure they were not caught short in 2022? That post-Covid boost certainly made Glee 2021 a huge success, but in itself created a situation where retailers had so much stock left in 2022 that they didn’t need or want to buy much new, and probably wouldn’t have had, whether Glee wasinJune or September.And thesituation isn’t much different this year with stocks bought in 2021 still selling through at retail due to the later than usual summer

GTN’s T r Pfeif r celebrates at Glee with Primeur’s Jenny

Douthwaite

Those with longer memories will cast their minds back to the Glee shows of the five or six years prior to Covid when the talk was of retailers either having completed all their ranging or buying decisions prior to September and therefore not attending in force or being too busy setting up Christmas retailing to beabletosparestaff to goto Glee. The general consensus wasthat something needed tochange, and I know the Glee team spent years consulting with exhibitors and retailers about the issue

Strategically for our industry, the move to having a trade show where new ideas and new product ranges can be shown right at the end of the previous season would seem an obvious winner.Theworld’s biggest garden and outdoorleisuretrade show, Spoga+ gafa in Koln also came to thesameconclusion Especially as theearlier dates allow for prototypes to be shown rather than just those products which have already been ordered for manufacture ready for availability next spring, as was becoming the case with the September date for Glee Buying straight after one season for the next year is also the preferred method for the other main garden centre retailing peak: Christmas

Moving a trade show to an earlier date for manufacturing and ordering purposes was also the factor that created SOLEXasastand-alone show in Julyback in 2008.LOFA members saidtheyneeded to gettheir orders into their manufacturingcentres before September as lead times with he grew longer. members ha ironic that the sale Glee to back in the 1990s ended up the set-up of SOLEX as a members show. I can recall around Glee in 1989 with David Arculus, Emap’s MD, who would be a great show for Emap to and sit Fair, which it had earlier that year. comment was the Far East grew longer Prior to 2008 LOFA membershad occupied Hall 2 and part of Hall 1at Glee

It’s rather ironic that the sale of Glee to Emap back in the 1990s ended up essentially funding the set-up of SOLEXas a members only show I can vividly recall walking around Glee in 1989 with David Arculus, Emap’s Deputy MD, who said that Glee would be a great showfor Emap to buy and sit alongside Spring Fair, which it had bought earlier that year My comment was that as a trade show owned and organised by the industry, that probably wouldn’t happen I was wrong, and Emap did buy Glee LOFA wasone of theshareholders of Glee and as a membership organisation use their funds to help LOFA members and thesales of their products, giving them th ability to set up SOLEX (at Telford from 2008 to 2012 and subsequently at the NEC), always in early July organisation use their funds to LOFA members and the sales of their them the

At SOLEX this year many retailers were commenting on the inconvenience of having to travel to the NEC twice within three weeks for Glee and then SOLEX Those with long memories will recall the joy with which having SOLEX separate from Glee was greeted: “It’s great to be able to spend as much time as aIwant buying furnitureand BBQS’s at SOLEX and then being able to focus on gardening at Glee, when before we were having to squeeze them both into one trip” was a typical comment from retailers The call this year was for both shows to happen at the same time With pressure on time today and the wide availability of suppliers showroom visits, post Covid, that may be a good route for the industry

That doesn’t, however, resolve theissue of thecries to move Glee back to September.Idoubt if SOLEX will be moving back after 14 years of ashow in July

I heard plenty of comment that smaller retailers weren’t going to attend Glee this year I personally bumped into plenty of folk from smaller garden centres, but I can imagine that some retailers who still have much too much stock from 2021’s ordering frenzy would prefer to stay at their centre to help sell that through It’s quite likely they could still be doing that this autumn, so possibly having Glee in September may not solve that issue

On the positive side, I’ve heard much more feedback fromretailers, both big and small, whoare taking a morestrategic view of theirbuying andranging, who understand thevalue of theearlier tradeshow date to give them more food for thought and planning so next year’s ranges and products can be put to bed before Christmas gets into gear

My personal view is that the best time for Glee would be early July, but that is when SOLEX happens, and NEC contracts usually include non-competing events exclusion clauses so there would have to be plenty of negotiations to make that move

If Glee is to be useful to groups and chains - including those on the fringes of gardening i e High Street and discounters –then September may be too late for them and my concern about moving back to the later date is that we may or may not get thesmaller retailers to theevent (as mentioned above) butwedecrease the opportunity for newexhibitors and new products to beseen and listed by those retailerswho need and want to plan their business in a strategic manner As I stated at the start of this article, as media partners we are only interested in the success of all our trade shows for both exhibitors and retailers At the end of the day, GTN won’t have any say in the timings as that is down to the owners and organisers of the events; however, we hope people’s short memories don’t lead us down a path that could be in the wrong direction