The IOG must be applauded this week for announcing that they have responded to visitor and exhibitor feedback following last year's first SALTEX exhibition at the NEC. As a result, this November they will be opening up an outdoor space for demonstration purposes.

This inability to turn on the displayed machines was the principal criticism which the show faced last year.

In a statement, which you can read in full here, IOG CEO Geoff Webb said, "Both the post-show exhibitor and visitor surveys indicated that outdoor demonstrations would be a much welcome return to the show, so we listened and made it happen."

To be fair, both whilst I was at the show last year and in conversations following it, I mostly heard positive comments from the exhibitors. In the main people seemed happy with the general set-up of the exhibition, the buzzy atmosphere created by the fairly compact space, the level of footfall to their stands and the quality of visitor enquiries.

Dissenting voices were in the main to do with this lack of demonstrations, but also to a lesser degree, with the timing of the show - which obviously hasn't changed.

This seemed particularly pertinent to those exhibitors who, rather than primarily show their wares to groundsman, were interested in dealers seeing what new products they had available. The argument being that November is simply too late for dealers to place orders for the following season.

However, dealers aren't the IOG's priority, their groundsmen members are - and November is generally considered quite a good time for them to be able to be away from their turf for a couple of days. And addressing the outdoor demonstration situation for these guys certainly seems like a sensible move by the IOG as it was undoubtedly traditional groundsmen who seemed to complain the most last year about this judging by the comments we received via our Turf Pro newsletter.

With this indoors exhibition and outdoors demonstration area, SALTEX seems like it's edging towards being more similar to the American GIE-EXPO show which takes place in Louisville, Kentucky each October. I was lucky enough to visit this exhibition last year and was mightily impressed by its best-of-both-worlds set up. Although being outside in Birmingham in November will be a rather different proposition compared to the fall in Kentucky! Brass and monkeys spring to mind!

A comment we received on this newsletter a couple of weeks ago when we included details about all the features of this year's GIE-EXPO said 'This is what SALTEX should be'. Louisville has plenty of content all geared toward dealer development - seminars, talks, a dealer-only preview session, technical training and more. But again to be fair to the IOG, that's not their job. Their commitment is to groundsmen - and the education on offer to their members at the show is admirably comprehensive. GIE-EXPO is run by the OPEI, similar to our AEA, hence the focus there on dealer training.

Not that I'm biased (!), but if you are looking for some dealer-centric content this November, if I may be so bold, might I suggest our Service Dealer Conference? A couple of weeks after SALTEX on November 17th at the Oxford Belfry, we shall be offering plenty for specialist dealers to engage with and get their teeth into. A visit to both events will no doubt be most valuable.