Show report
For most shows, landing a partner at that level takes years. For HairCon, it took a phone call.
“ I was doing a show in India. The CEO called me out of the blue, said he ' d heard about the event and it was exactly what he was looking for. I flew back on the Tuesday morning. We had dinner Tuesday evening and did the deal,” Dynan recalled.
It’ s the kind of story that sounds too good to be true, except it isn ' t. And it says something important about what HairCon has built. When the right show finds the right partner, the conversation moves fast.
Rethinking the exhibitor relationship HairCon doesn’ t sell by the square metre. Exhibitors are more like partners. Commitment is to a package that includes stage time, marketing benefits, database access and fortnightly team meetings throughout the year.
“ We don’ t work with 500 brands. We work with a much smaller, tighter group, a lot more closely. They see us as an extension of their team,” Dynan noted.
The results spoke for themselves. More than half of exhibitors at this year’ s show had already signed up to return before they’ d even packed down their stands.
Making dwell time a metric that matters One of HairCon ' s most quietly radical moves was its approach to dwell time. Fifty per cent of ticket sales were twoday passes. Visitors weren’ t dropping in, but staying, growing, and leaving with a lot more than they came with. The dwell time, you might say, had serious volume.”
“ It’ s like a festival. There’ s your main stage, like the pyramid stage. But when you turn the corner, there ' s a little acoustic stage. And then the party goes on into the evening,” Dynan explained.
It’ s a model that changes the commercial dynamic entirely. Brands aren ' t fighting for a 30-second window of attention. They’ re building relationships across a weekend. What’ s next The Assembly, the company behind HairCon, has been quietly building more than just a portfolio. A recently acquired industry magazine, Creative HEAD, complete with its long-running Salon Smart conference and an awards ceremony, Most Wanted and IT List Awards, held in Drumsheds with £ 4m worth of lighting. A new barber-focused title to reach an audience the hair show was already attracting.
“ All of a sudden we’ ve gone from having one trade show to this whole portfolio,” Dynan added.“ And they ' re all feeding into each other.”
With HairCon growing, a landmark sponsorship in place and an expanding media business behind it, The Assembly is doing something rare in the events industry: building something with genuine cultural currency.
The aisles were packed. The brands were happy. And somewhere in the crowd, a hairdresser who’ d been working alone in a one-person salon found her inspiration again. EW
www. exhibitionworld. co. uk Issue 4 2026 47