A lot of what Focus is about for exhibitors is meeting their public and giving people an opportunity of looking at their products, whether new to the market or not.
The Company I'm involved with sells mainly on the net, so letting people actually get their hands on the stuff can be difficult - but I'm guessing that other manufacturers have the same problems too, because even if they are supplying shops, the shops won't stock the entire range and probably won't have anywhere near as much knowledge as the manufacturer.
We're a good example of this, we have two products that have each come top in a magazine group test, beating all other products including some that cost far more - but buyers need to actually handle the equipment and judge for themselves, and Focus is ideal for this because they can get their hands on all of the equipment from all of the suppliers.
Also, we launched a brand new product. People loved it and the orders are flooding in, but because it's new it would have started off very slowly if we hadn't been able to show it at Focus, because nobody wants to be the first, they want reassurance from other people who already have it, or they at least want to see it and handle it themselves before deciding.
A lot of exhibitors use demonstrations as sales tools; we went in the opposite direction, showing people how easy it all is and how little equipment is needed, and it worked well for us.
Focus shouldn't really be about shopping for bargains, it costs a fortune to exhibit there and so genuine discounts are difficult to give, unless the products are ex demo. IMO Focus should be about comparing actual products with advertising claims, and with competing products.
