Priority sector Throughout the pandemic the landscaping sector was seen as a priority service and able to carry on working .
“ The domestic market is absolutely booming ,” Jim says and after months of looking at our forlorn outside spaces demand for gardening services has gone wild . “ Since lockdown if you wanted to find a contractor to come and do your garden you might have to wait six months . The commercial side , doing gardens in big residential new builds were slowed down slightly , but in the whole the landscaping sector was still working .”
Jamie says : “ That ’ s where we have been very fortunate . It was bad for the events industry as a whole , but in our sector it didn ’ t have such a negative effect because they were busier .
“ The fact that we have been able to grow the event is amazing . We have doubled in size . The audience grew . That ’ s the exception from the norm . A lot of other events I went to shrank in numbers of exhibitors and many had a hit on visitor numbers depending on how close they were to winter . We have now gone into this year with really high rebook rate , we have already got the same floorplan sold with another 30 % or 40 % extra inside . So the next event in November will be even bigger .
“ It may have been luck that our show was November , just when things were getting back to normal . But now we have gone into this year well ahead of where we were two years previously .
“ In Germany and France their landscaping events are mammoth . They are ten times the size of our events where their landscaping sectors are smaller or similar size to ours . We ’ ve obviously delivered good growth , but we ’ re really just touching the surface .”
Jim adds : “ We ’ re in a fantastic position and our core business has allowed us to grow as we want to .
“ FutureScape does extremely well from the people we ’ ve always done well from , but there are so many peripheral sectors we can now expand into as well . By going to ExCeL we now have much more opportunity to go into those peripheral markets . Our strength comes from our core , but we can also do so much more .”
Sustainable growth As gardeners , developers and public bodies look to improve sustainability , landscaping is often the answer to their climate-friendly prayers . Huge growth has come from the drive towards net zero . Green elements are now a requirement of all developments and carbon offsetting means more trees .
Jim says : “ The more people compete about sustainability , the more it helps the landscaping sector , because what the solution tends to be is landscaping and green spaces .
“ It ’ s plant some trees . Have open spaces and parks . Most of the solutions are beneficial to our audience .
“ The market is booming . It ’ s worth £ 11.6bn . They reckon by 2030 it ’ ll be worth £ 42bn . There isn ’ t any other market increasing and growing at that speed and when we first came into the market in 2007 it was worth half what it is now . Whether it was good timing for us or luck that we got in at the right time and the whole sector is increasing its profile .”
Despite their good fortunes there are some downsides to being smaller fish in the pond and their lack of size means they are not always able seize the opportunities coming their way .
Jim explains : “ One of the big companies might have the resources and finance to chuck behind it and grow as big as possible especially if they can see the potential is there and is massive . For us being a smaller , independent family run business we have to be quite selective about how we do it and at what speed . That can be a negative of not being part of a big corporate money funded business .”
But the barriers are not insurmountable . Their spring show will go ahead at Sandown this March but they will be considering their options to expand in 2023 .
“ We have to look at when we ’ re too big to stay there ,” says Jim . “ We need to look at opportunities to grow .”
Jamie adds : “ Sandown were really supportive of businesses when Covid-19 happened . Same as bigger organisers being more faceless , where bigger venues may have had a more brutal approach , Sandown was amazing .
“ Now we have got this opportunity to grow our spring event and we need the facility that will allow us to do that and we have to get that balance right . We have some big decisions to make because spring will sell out this year and going into FutureScape in the autumn we have ExCeL . But for the 2023 spring event we have to look at how to maximise that opportunity .” EN
February — 13