U.K. Organizers Hoping for glee-ful 2005
By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 6/20/2005
Rough times for Germany's gardens may mean good fortune for one of the United Kingdom's fastest-growing trade fairs.
Until last year, Koelnmesse collocated its outdoor lifestyle and gardening exhibitions, respectively, as spoga+gafa each September at the Cologne fairgrounds.
However, starting this year, spoga — which caters to the home and outdoor leisure business with products for everything from barbecuing to equestrian sports — will take place by itself in odd-numbered years, collocating with gafa — the gardening show — only in even-numbered years. In other words, the once-annual gardening show is becoming biennial, starting in 2006.
That's good news to Trade Promotion Services, the exhibition-organizing arm of e-map business Europe. TPS is expecting glee, its annual gardening show at Birmingham's Natl. Exhibition Centre (also in September) to see a boost as a result of gafa's scheduling cutback to once every other year.
"We're hearing people say 'a non-gafa year' referring to odd-numbered years, allowing us to capture part of that market," said Susan Fairley, marketing director for TPS.
According to TPS, glee's attendance has doubled in the last six years and tripled in the last 10. This year, organizers are expecting 30,000 buyers to visit the 67,000 net square meter (721,000 net square foot) exhibition featuring 1,700 companies displaying products for landscaping, nurseries, pet care, home decorating and outdoor living.
About 200 of last year's buyers came from North America, and about 2,500 total from outside England. TPS hopes to double those numbers this year, partially because of continuing strength in the lawn and garden sector, and partially through an aggressive attendance promotion campaign that includes offering 100 buyers flights from Newark, N.J., to Birmingham for $100.
Fairley said glee is going strong because it takes place in the United Kingdom, and Britons are the most enthusiastic gardeners in the world. "In Britain, the individual gardening center is a monumental force," she said. "It's not a hobby; it's part of our lives."
Not so across the English Channel. A June report by BHB (the Federal Assn. of the German Do-It-Yourself, Building and Garden Specialist Stores) summed up the lackluster state of Germany's gardening industry: "Following the encouraging and continual rates of increase in the past, the sector must however now acclimatize itself to the fact that the garden market is only growing at a slow rate."
The report found that unseasonably cold and wet weather have converged with a generally cautious consumer climate to drive down sales even further in the sector so far in 2005, adding to a 3.7-percent decrease from 2003 to 2004.
Spoga+gafa last year drew approximately 48,000 visitors to a 131,300 net sq. m. (1.4 million net sq. ft.) exhibition featuring 1,210 exhibitors from 52 countries.
Koelnmesse said its decision to suppress gafa every other year came at the behest of exhibitors. Responding to a survey, "exhibitors in the garden-technology sector in particular strongly expressed their preference for a two-year scheduling cycle," said Koelnmesse spokesperson Holger Bueth.
However, spoga will offer those who still want to exhibit every year a way to do so. Starting this September, the show will add a garden lifestyle section to, as the marketing message puts it, "find everything that makes a garden such a pleasant place to be after the hard work of gardening is done."
The declines in the gardening sector do not appear to be affecting Koelnmesse's overall business. The company reported 2004 revenues of • 160 million ($194 million), on par with 2002, the last comparable year because of show rotations. A record 69 tradeshows took place in Cologne last year, 45 of them produced by Koelnmesse. The company forecasts $178 million ($216 million) in revenue for 2005.
