It is hard to see the point of a trade show for many suppliers - and it wasn't that busy yesterday. The stands are also much less lavish than they used to be - I remember some of the elaborate Nikon/Canon stands with two floors, walkways and internal "rooms". Nothing like that now. The idea of the show as a temporary shop is still popular for some people, but I almost never buy anything from a stand - I'm not going to commit to something based on a 1-minute pitch there and then.. A lot of the floor space was taken up with filler such as sets you can shoot each other on, and a lot of it was just empty (they could have used the space to triple the number of tables and chairs though as there's never anywhere to sit and eat your £15 hotdog).
Agreed. I think that the show has been going downhill since Focus on Imaging closed, and maybe a year or so before that.
The costs, for exhibitors, are horrific and it didn't help when the show was cancelled during Covid and refunds weren't made to the exhibitors . . .
Actual sales are poor, most people save money by buying from grey importers, Amazon and similar, the main advantage for exhibitors has, for a very long time, been building customer loyalty and promoting their brand, but brand loyalty and customer loyalty is now all but dead.
And yet, some people still believe that they can get a bargain there
. I know of at least one dodgy seller who encourages people to pay cash, to evade both tax and VAT, and they can afford to discount their stock to some extent, but most sellers are honest and are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Reality check: The exhibitors pay an enormous amount of money to go there, the food concessionaires have to pay even more (and probably make very little profit on their overpriced food) and yet some people are still happy to pay to enter and pay a lot to park their car, which just doesn't make sense to me.
And of course, things can happen that can make the exhibition a total disaster for exhibitors, I remember one year when it snowed on what should have been the busiest day, and the place was nearly empty, and snow is a real possibility at this time of year.
The internet has killed shows like this too. There used to be a lot of exhibitions where we would go for fact finding with everything under one roof. Now we do our research online and there's no need for an exhibition.
Yes. Also, it can be hard to find suppliers who have knowledgeable staff, and many exhibitors have to hire in temporary staff for exhibitions, and these people are just good at smiling and telling customers what they want to hear, they often have zero useful knowledge.