Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Last week’s Spring Fair at Birmingham’s NEC attracted its highest attendance for five years.
Organiser Emap Connect Home & Gift said the event achieved an ABC-audited figure of 74,000 over the five days – the largest number of UK and overseas retailers to visit Spring Fair since 2006. It is the second year running that the number of visitors to the show has risen.
This year’s international attendance accounted for 10% of the total, while exhibitor numbers were 8% up on last year.
Emap invested £1m on new show features and content this year, and has said that Spring Fair 2012 will introduce yet more innovations, as well as being bigger.
One improvement was the new covered walkway between Halls 9 and 5, which, said Louise Young, Emap Connect Home & Gift managing director, “increased crossover buying and eased visitor flow around the exhibition”.
It also went down well with Jansen International managing director Fred Huisman. “The new link from Hall 5 to 9 is a stroke of genius,” he said, “and looks amazing. Spring Fair rivals any international competition and can only become stronger, attracting more and more overseas visitors and exhibitors. It’s a great show organised by an amazing team,” he added.
Spring Fair International 2012 will take place at the NEC from February 5 to 9.
