Green shoots
From the buds of a small family-run show Eljays44 have nourished the green shoots of the landscaping world to blossom into a hardy perennial . Emily Wallin met managing director Jim Wilkinson and his director son Jamie
The flourishing FutureScape show is one of the best examples of growth in a tough climate over the past two years .
While many exhibitions wilted during the pandemic , Eljays44 , a small family-run independent business based in Littlehampton , West Sussex , has blossomed – more than doubling the size of their pre-pandemic shows .
Originally a print publisher , Eljays44 launched FutureScape as a small show in 2014 .
By 2019 the show had been selling out Sandown Racecourse for several years and was ready to move to ExCeL . But with just hours before the doors opened to their spring show in March 2020 the country was plunged into lockdown . Finally back on the show floor , the November 2021 edition of FutureScape was more than double the size of any of their previous events – with 180 exhibitors and 5,000 visitors .
As the nation looked to their outdoor spaces during lockdown the landscaping business has been booming , and the green shoots continue to grow .
Dead money Eljays44 director Jamie Wilkinson describes the moment they had to cancel their show just hours before the doors opened as “ crazy panic ”. He says : “ The spring event was due to run on 15 March
2020 and the pre-lockdown rules came in on 14 March . We had done all the work . Everything was in the van . We had to call it off at the very last minute . We had two choices : either run it with nobody there or can it . It was dead money .” They had been preparing to move their main autumn FutureScape show to ExCeL since 2019 . The bigger event was set to double anything they had done before at Sandown – but as an independent business they struggled to survive . MD Jim Wilkinson says : “ In 2019 we went out and sold to all our top exhibitors , telling them that we were moving to ExCeL in 2020 . “ By March 2020 we had already doubled the size we
10 — February