Strong industry support at Exclusively

This year’s Exclusively Show (The Business Design Centre, Islington 14 and 15 June) saw footfall 28% up on last year and ahead of many pre-pandemic shows, with enthusiastic feedback from exhibitors, retail buyers and media visitors. Commenting on the success, Exclusively Chair Will Jones, who is also Chief Operating Officer of BHETA, Exclusively’s owner, said: “Exclusively 2022 was a fabulous event with lots of energy and excitement throughout. Coming on the back of a tough two years, this is particularly welcome, and provides great evidence for how much the electricals, tabletop and housewares sectors enjoy face-to-face contact and networking.”

Will continued: “The show was a sell out with great support from the whole industry, and I was particularly delighted with the retailer buy in to the initiatives we offered up-front. We delivered our busiest-ever international Meet the Buyer event on Monday evening with retailers coming from all over the globe including USA and South Africa. This is especially pleasing in the context of Covid and Brexit – clearly, international retailers are still keen on doing business with UK suppliers.

“The trend areas had more retailers booked on Trend Tours and Trend Talks than ever before and enjoyed very high levels of engagement. The brand showcase played host to literally hundreds of media visitors and influencers and included a very well-attended product launch by Swan, working with top ‘cleanfluencer’ Lynsey Crombie, the ‘Queen of Clean’.

“The Launchpad area for break-through suppliers also had its best year with some excellent feedback from exhibitors, while new show features such as the wine tastings with Olly Smith and Jeremy Pang’s video creation proved super-popular. Given the visitor numbers and the evident success of show events and features, it’s fantastic, but not surprising that we had record re-bookings for 2023 before the show had even ended. In fact over a third of the hall is already re-booked.

“Overall, Exclusively was a great success and that was very gratifying. The team put a huge amount of effort behind all the initiatives, and we were superbly supported by the exhibitors and visitors. It also reinforced what the industry does best, engaging with customers, meeting face to face and networking with peers.”