As I mentioned last week, it's clearly that time of year when there are lots of events calling to you to spend time away from the workplace.
It's always pleasing when you come away from these things knowing that you made the right decision to sacrifice the time and effort to attend - because of course sometimes you do have to ask yourself the question 'is this actually going to benefit me?'
I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised with how impressive the Glee exhibition was this week when I went along to the NEC. It felt significantly larger and more abuzz than in recent times.
With the previous few visits I have made, the show had felt kind of perfunctory – not exactly dying, but perhaps going through the motions somewhat. Certainly for specialist dealers.
This year though there were clearly more exhibitors - including one returning major machinery manufacturer - and with the show featuring heavily in live broadcasts on BBC Breakfast on its opening day, there was the feeling that a significant event, for a vibrant industry, was taking place.
Plans are established in fact, to expand the show next year. More halls will be opened with a reorganising of the exhibition’s lay-out. Is this a sign that the gardening industry is enjoying an upswing in fortunes?
Perhaps. The show's organisers will certainly have you believe so. In a statement released upon the show closing on Wednesday, Show Director Matthew Mein said, "Glee has been a really strong show with a great buzz. The fresh features such as The Retail Lab and the outstanding seminar content have complimented the exhibitors' strong displays and new product launches. It has been really pleasing to see more teams of retailer's staff at the show, spending more time in the halls, soaking up the plethora of new ideas and retailing solutions.
"We are now looking forward to the refresh of Glee for 2018 with an exciting new floorplan to create a refreshed look and feel."
I spent some time talking to Simon Belcher md of Handy Distribution, who once again had the most significant machinery presence at the show. Simon certainly believes attending Glee each year is very important for his company. They have plans in place already for a differently shaped, but still impressively large stand in 2018 following the redesign.
Once again Simon said the customers they were seeing come onto their stand which featured Handy, Webb, Flymo, McCulloch, Karcher, Gardena, GreenWorks and Bosch, were not so much specialist dealers. “We’re talking to garden centres, hardware stores, mail order and DIY shops mainly,” he said. “Over the three days we’ll see a handful of dealers probably. But for us its always about the quality of people we talk to though, not the quantity.”
Asked what visitors to the stand were talking to them about Simon said, “We are seeing a lot interest in the Webb mowers. We’ve really started to make some penetration into the petrol market with those.”
Elsewhere the returning machinery manufacturer was STIHL, who with their fairly low-key, small stand were promoting their Compact Cordless range of products.
Targeting garden centres and suitable DIY/hardware stores, when asked if the company had signed up any of these new style retailers at the show, Dave Mackay, Business Development Manager said, “We’ve met some keen garden centres here at Glee which is great to see and was always our remit for this show. However we are taking a sustainable approach to new sign-ups which offers the right balance to new retailers and our loyal dealer network.”
It was following the show that STIHL made the announcement that they had signed up Dobbies Garden Centres across Scotland for the Compact Cordless range.
It'll be interesting to see if more announcements of similar retailers they met at show will be forthcoming. Also will they attend again next year? I don't know. But if it's going to be even bigger as the organisers promise, maybe we'll see other machinery companies starting to find their way back into the halls at the NEC?
