At last night’s Promota Gala Dinner, Rod Duncan (Promota Chairman), announced that merger talks have been re-ignited between BPMA & Promota, with an agreement in principal for the merger to take place from the 1st May 2010. He also announced that the current Promota Show would be the last, & that the Trade Only National Show would be the industry’s only trade show in future. The show currently taking place is the Promota Show’s 21st anniversary, & will now also be the Trade Associations last trade show. The Promota Show enters its second day today and yesterdays attendance figures were unavailable at the time of going to press. Since the launch of the Trade Only Show in 2006 the Promota Show has seen a rapid decline in exhibitors & visitors, & yesterday appeared at least twenty five percent of the size that it was four years ago. Fundamentally, the difference between each show was that Promota was run by the Trade Association with a members only visitor policy. The Trade Only National Show is professionally run by a commercial operation with an open trade visitor policy. It appears that Promota members have voted with their feet over the past four years and the majority no longer proactively support the Trade Association’s show. Further announcements on the merger are expected in the coming weeks.

Published on: March 2nd, 2010