Feature
exhibition in the UK from happening. We
couldn’t quite get to that scenario where
planes are dropping out the sky.
RH: “Our biggest fear is if there are too
many problems for some of our events
that have a large number of international
exhibitors, and that drops off too
significantly. You have a certain size that
an event has to maintain to be viable and
be seen by the industry, and if you take too
much of a hit, even if it’s just once, could
that put the longevity of that event at risk?
“Those are the things we wonder about
and talk about. Hopefully people realise the
impact of Brexit and accept that there will
be some shuffling in the short term.”
AH: “When it comes down to perception
and confidence you’re coming down to the
human nature side of things rather than a
business reason.”
NM: “Are there any of your members that
just aren’t doing anything?”
AH: “Yes. It comes down to the fact that
they just haven’t got the resources. A lot of
our members have two bad quarters and
they’re in trouble, and a lot of our members
are owner-managers. There are many who
have said ‘ok, we’ll wake up on 1 April and
see what the world looks like’.”
Mark Bristoll, sales
director at CEVA
Showfreight
“The uncertainty
surrounding Brexit and
the potential impact on
the industry provided
an ideal backdrop for
EN’s latest roundtable
discussion. As logistics
and particularly the
movement of freight
across borders is a
such a hot topic, it was
important for CEVA
Showfreight to join the
debate.”
PB: “I think there will be a lot of trial and
error from everybody. From the exhibitor
point of view, the first 12-month show cycle
the stands will be smaller, they’ll start
purchasing products abroad rather than
from the UK, they’ll have to start changing
their ways just to get a feel for how things
are going to go.”
DM: “Is anyone holding off on a big
investment or decision?”
RH: “Day-to-day it hasn’t stopped
anything; we’re launching new shows in
Europe and in the UK. Business will go on.”
AH: “I personally think that the social
impact is far greater. I’ve sat down and read
documents on WTO and thought ‘we can
make this work’. I’m not happy, but we can
make this work. The social impact of this,
howeverm will go on for a generation.”
Driving innovation
DM: “I would say it’s had a positive effect
on our business; we’ve been trying to make
something good out of this shambles. We’re
a one-trick pony on the events side; we have
the Completely Retail Marketplace and the
retail industry is struggling, so we’ve said to
our events team, ‘come up with new ideas’,
and we’ve launched a consumer wedding
show. It’s made us less complacent. It’s
actually quite exciting.”
RH: “I think that’s what I find when I look.
Whether it be Brexit, global trade issues, a
tendency of a lot of big brands to do their
own events. There have been a lot of changes
that force adaptation and evolution and
in a simplistic way this is just another. It’s
going to be a bit more painful than maybe it
needed to be but it’s just another blip.”
AH: “Opportunity will present itself.
In the last recession we went through as
an industry we looked at becoming niche-
focused: focused on the visitor and focused
on how consumers thought. It’s easy to talk
about a slippery slope, but opportunity will
present itself and it’s about turning people
onto a different way of thinking.”
MB: “What we’ve got to try and do is flip
that switch and compete. We’ve got make
sure that the choice is with exhibitions and
the choice is with our organisations.” EN
March — 39