Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Last week’s Autumn Fair International delivered the highest footfall at the show since 2006, with attendance rising for the third year running – up 3% on 2010.
Organiser EMAP Connect Home & Gift said that a significant investment in marketing initiatives and new show features had helped attract a total of 32,223 buyers to the event.
There were over 1,500 exhibitors, 900 of them exclusive to Autumn Fair this season.
One of the most popular new features proved to be the Trend Bar, where retailers could pick up information from trend briefings held in a stylish setting. The series of presentations and free trend cards was popular with visitors seeking inspiration and insight into future trends to help guide their product sourcing at the show.
Said event director Roz McGuinness: “This year’s Autumn Fair has seen an incredible range of innovative and trend-setting products on show from companies around the world.
“This in turn attracted visitors from across the breadth of the UK and Europe and as far afield as USA, Japan, Chile, The United Arab Emirates and Australia. AFI is the single most important event outside of Spring Fair in the UK home and gift calendar.”
Next year’s show will run at Birmingham’s NEC from September 2 to 5, with the volume hall open a day earlier.
