Feature
BLE
It’s good to be back! The long-awaited return of Brand Licensing Europe is now only mere weeks away, with London Excel preparing to welcome back the leading licensing trade fair from 17th-19th November. Toy World caught back up with Anna Knight, VP Licensing, Informa Markets, to find out what else has happened in the time since we spoke to her last. but brilliant three days; we just can’t wait to get onsite now. The online meetings platform, which lets registered attendees request in-person and online appointments, has been open for the last few weeks and we’ve already seen 2,000 meeting requests sent between exhibitors and attendees. This clearly tells us that the industry is as excited about getting together as we are.
Since we last spoke, BLE announced that another big name – ViacomCBS Consumer Products – was joining the exhibitor line-up. This must be a major plus for you?
It’s just a few weeks before BLE kicks off – how are the last-minute preparations going? Right now, we’re just four weeks away and it’s all getting very real. The whole team is so excited by the prospect of being back at Excel and meeting up with everyone in person again. We’ve got such a packed event in terms of exhibitors, features, keynotes, events and more. It’s going to be a hectic
Of course, it’s great to have a company as large and influential as ViacomCBS Consumer Products at the show. That said, BLE’s purpose is to facilitate connections across the whole industry: it’s just as important to us that we’re able to tell your readers we’ve got close to 170 exhibitors confirmed, big and small, across all three categories - Character & Entertainment, Brands & Lifestyle, and Art, Design and Image - and from 20 countries. That’s across in-person and online, as BLE this year is truly embracing the multi-platform format. The majority are exhibiting both in-person and online too, which is testament to their commitment to this format.
The government recently outlined relaxations to overseas travel. Has this made a difference to the number of international BLE visitors?
It was obviously welcome news to us when the UK’s travel system was simplified. We knew it would make life so much easier for our international visitors and exhibitors wanting to attend BLE in person. The relaxations have definitely made a difference to the number of international visitor registrations, particularly from areas that little bit further afield, such as the USA. European registrations were already tracking pretty well. Despite the relaxations, we know that not everyone will be in a position to join us - yet will still have the same business requirements. We hope our hybrid solution gives the industry what it needs: BLE virtual will run from 30th November to 1st December. This is also why we’ve moved most of our educational content online. We will have two inperson keynotes as well as live content in the Retail Trends Lounge, including the final of this year’s Kelvyn Gardner License This! competition, which has been extended to three categories including an award for Product Innovation.
When we spoke in October, you couldn’t yet tell us specific details about the BLE keynotes. It seems there’s now a fair bit more you can share regarding speakers and topics? I was so excited about the keynotes, and it was really hard to keep them secret, but I hope you’ll agree that they are as huge as I promised they would be. At 4pm on Wednesday 17th, we will be hosting
