Exhibitions

For how long will we be this busy....?

I suppose it was inescapable that a show which each year was so well attended, so manically busy and so looked forward to by all for twelve months, should eventually be split regionally in the hope that even more interest and attendance could be squeezed from the Cake Decorating Fraternity. Naturally, the Exhibition Company will do well, but the losers will inevitably be the Traders and ultimately, the public.

In 2012, the ICHF split the country in two, Birmingham and London, in 2013 it will be split into three, London, Manchester and Birmingham with the added possibility of Scotland and Dublin, Ireland. Also in 2013 the Cake And Bake Show will be in London and Manchester, just days apart from the ICHF shows. Where will it end and how many Traders will pull out their hair attempting to attend all 5 shows next year, to say nothing of Cork, Appeldoorn, Harrogate, Brighton and Boskoop? And of course, just how much money do the public have to spend at these shows? Surely the income will remain pretty constant, while the costs to the Traders and Public will jump astronomically.

My favourite Exhibitionist....!

Naturally, we as Traders have little choice about attending - we have to be where the public are - and we're certainly not complaining about the increase in interest in these shows or in cake decorating generally, but we now have to make some choices about which exhibitions to attend and which ones to miss. This leads to my other concern regarding the smaller regional shows and how attendance at them will be affected by the plethora of larger Exhibitions. Some shows have already suffered and closed as a result of reduced patronage and I would hate to see more of the smaller ones fall by the wayside. I suppose we will have to wait and see what 2013 brings as the number of Larger shows increases....