Merchandise World, the UK’s leading and biggest promotional merchandise trade exhibition took place on Wednesday 30th and Thursday 31st Jan 2019 at NAEC Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, CV8 2LG.
Merchandise World had 1348 distributor visitors over the two days, which was over 25% up on last January, and 217 top quality exhibitors from the UK & Europe. All stands in the show hall were sold out with a waiting list remaining and, based on the high level of re-signs, the next New Year show at Ricoh Arena in February 2020 is also expected to sell out.
During the show, visitors & exhibitors alike enjoyed the complimentary top level hospitality consuming over 5000 hot & cold drinks, 3000+ sandwiches & packs of crisps, 80 kilos of pick’n’mix, and a lot of relaxed visitors had some of their own ‘me time’ with a free massage! To ensure that exhibitors who could not get away from their stands did not miss out, there were ‘Roving Tea Trolleys’ delivering hot drinks and snacks to the stands.
Even though the British weather decided to deliver snow, and with ‘Yellow Weather Warnings’ in place from the Met Office, the promotional merchandise trade still gathered in impressive numbers with distributor visitors arriving from as far afield as Ireland, Scotland, Europe and even the USA.
The winners in the MW Promotional Product Awards were presented with their awards at the show, and all finalist and winning products were displayed on the BPMA stand. This, alongside many new & hot products featured throughout the show hall, ensured that the visitors discovered plenty to sell in the new year.
For the first time there was no printed Show Guide, but all of the show information was on the Merchandise World App, including a feature which indicated to the exhibitors which visitors were actually in the show hall.
Everything about Merchandise World is designed to be in the best interest of the promotional merchandise industry and there is a strict visitor policy to only attract professional distributors. Many exhibitors expressed how pleased they were with the visitor quality and quantity, together with all of the other aspects of the event.
About Merchandise World
Merchandise World is now clearly established as the UK’s leading and biggest promotional merchandise trade exhibition and the place for the industry to come together in February and September each year. This industry leading event is a unique concept which combines a traditional exhibition, a networking event and optional appointment booking for specific meeting times.
All sales & administration teams, management and directors from professional distributor companies from across the UK & Ireland are invited. Our invited visitors can choose to informally see the latest and best selling products from the industry’s top suppliers in a traditional exhibition format or hold business review or planning meetings by appointment with exhibitors. There is no limit on to the number of company personnel able to attend from any invited distributor company, and they do not have to be members of BPMA, Purple Club or Sourcing City.
The entire UK & Ireland promotional merchandise market spend is in excess of £1Billion and Merchandise World has tremendous support from the industry with around 1400 top quality professional distributor buyers having attended previous individual events.
We look forward to you coming to the next Merchandise World which is the perfect time for professional distributors to find new suppliers, reinforce relationships with existing suppliers, to see new products, to be reminded of top sellers, to discuss trading plans and to discover new opportunities.
Merchandise world is jointly owned by the British Promotional Merchandise Association (BPMA) and Sourcing City.
To book or find out more about our next two Merchandise World Shows below, please contact: Liz, Katie or Ella on: 0844 504 5006 (Overseas Callers: +44 (0)1252 701034) or Email: info@merchandiseworld.co.uk
- Wednesday 11th September 2019 at Marshall Arena, MK Stadium, Milton Keynes
- Wednesday 12th & Thursday 13th February 2020 at Ricoh Arena, Coventry
Published on: February 8th, 2019
