Anagram Events

In the last week I've been to both Excite! and Taste of London - 2 very different events, but with something of note at each.

Excite! seemed very much an event for stand builders and contractors to pick up the latest gizmos for enhancing stand look and feel - so if I went, maybe the rebranding worked, as it probably wasn't really for me. However it was also notable for the presence of a good smattering of exhibition organisers walking around, clearly looking for some networking on a warm summer afternoon - so maybe everyone else felt the same?

The organisers had done a good job of nicely dressing up the Brompton Road entrance of EC&O, although there were no signs at the Earls Court Station entrance to the EC&O complex, which seemed a bit odd given the event's website had (of course) simply stated "Earls Court" as the location, not the "we might as well just say it's much smaller than Confex" Brompton Hall!

Excite!'s (is that how you add an 's to the end of it??) 3pm seminars were pretty thinly attended - but glancing in at them it seemed that this may be as much to do with content as timing. Maybe worth thinking that it could be better to have nothing happening than to have "fillers" or to put exhibitors on stage where they will only get disappointed by lack of attendance.

Taste was its usual busy, rain-threatened self, although it was notable for the lack of a few top-end restaurants and a few more mid-market food and beverage brands than in previous years. No Gordon Ramsay, despite him having headlined the launch edition of "Taste" at Christmas - maybe the downside of a solus deal at ExCeL, or just belt tightening at the Ramsay empire?

We were fortunate in that we managed to grab a table right in the middle of the exhibitor area in a section which had been branded quite heavily by British Airways, and which as a result no-one had dared to sit in - presumably on the assumption that it was a VIP-only area (like the other 2 BA-branded facilities at the show. Great for us, but a useful reminder that there needs to be a coherent "fit" in the way you select sponsors and attach them to areas of the show. In this case the visitors clearly had come to the venue with an understanding that BA were associated with bits of the show you could only get into by paying more, and no-one wanted the embarrassment of being chucked out of this particular area! I suppose it showed how effective the pre-marketing had been in establishing BA as a "VIP" brand at Taste, but whether Brand Events sale steam would be bold enough to show BA the pictures of a deserted BA-branded area as evidence of the success of their campaign is another matter...

The other interesting thing to extrapolate from Taste was that the busy restaurant stands were definitely those serving the biggest portions, rather than the most sophisticated and upscale restaurants. Whether this is a symptom of a decline in audience poshness (I hesitate to say "quality!"), a marker for the entire restaurant business or just basic supply & demand economics in action I can't say, but it's a timely reminder that your customers have a keen nose (almost literally in this case) for value, no matter how you try to dress it up.

Labels: Excite Exhibition, Taste of London