Exhibition News Spring 2023 | Page 29

INDEPENDENT ORGANISERS

Growing into the future

FutureScape was launched as a small trade show by landscaping publishers Eljays44 in 2014 . The show moved to ExCeL in 2021 more than doubling its previous floorspace and following their most successful year to date the family-run independent organisers have set their sights on further growth . After winning the EN Indy Award for Most Impressive Growth at a Trade Show , managing director Jamie Wilkinson , and his dad chairman Jim caught up with EN about their ongoing success .

What made the 2022 edition of FutureScape the best yet ? Jamie Wilkinson : FutureScape 2022 attracted over 4,000 attendees and was praised as the most successful edition of the event yet . Not only did stand space grow by 20 % but we also had 18 % more attendees than the previous FutureScape , making it our busiest event yet . One of the other things that was a real success last year that we didn ’ t do before was make some changes into the evening . This year we

put our big awards into the hall at ExCeL . I don ’ t know many event organisers who do that . You benefit from the exhibition having more people and then you also benefit on the other side if somebody was um-ing and ah-ing over whether to come , they can come to some of the conference sessions beforehand or come see some suppliers . So it was a winner . Jim Wilkinson : The show itself felt like it was coming to what our expectations
The Eljays44 team scoopiing their EN Indy Award
PHOTO : Jonathan JT Taylor , Aniseed Photo
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