Thankfully the recent spell of wet weather did not hamper the spirits of all those attending last week’s SALTEX, with a good turnout from a plethora of turf professionals and volunteers from all parts of the country.
The show, now in its tenth year at the NEC Birmingham, was held for the first time in Hall 17 - a slightly smaller space than previous years.
The two-day show seemed to be well attended, so it will be interesting to see the official figures when they are presumably released in the coming days.
The show certainly felt busy from around 11am until 2pm on both days. Also, there were several new exhibitors at this year’s show.
It was great to see Tim Lodge owner of Agrostis Turf Consultancy who had a Stand opposite our TurfPro / Service Dealer stand. I have known Tim for many years and it was nice to catch up with him. He like many turf specialists are now investing in new technologies such as drones and data collection devices to map playing surfaces and land assets so they can prepare work and maintenance programmes.
Again, there was a lot of robotic technologies on offer with many companies offering a wide range of devices to help maintain sport surfaces and amenity sites - with the likes of Husqvarna having a whole area dedicated to these developments.
EGO were also showing off their latest robotic mowers along with their now extensive range of Pro X professional battery powered tools.
There were various announcements made around the show including on Iseki’s stand where their MD, David Withers, announced that he will be retiring at the end of 2025 following a distinguished career spanning more than four decades in the turf care and grounds maintenance industry.
David Withers (right) with Alan Prickett at SALTEX 2025
You can read more about what was said here, but I’m personally sure that he will be sorely missed. Without a doubt during his long career David has left an indelible mark of successes on the amenity and sport turf Industry, both home and abroad. I’d like to wish him well for the future, but I’m sure we will still see him around occasionally keeping an eye on the industry.
For me, this show is always about the people who work tirelessly in our sector to deliver daily, the fruits of their labour. Whether this is working on the sports facilities, parks and open spaces or ensuring that we have the equipment, resources and products to do our job.
Shows such as SALTEX provide an important networking and learning experience and are vital for improving our understanding of our unique industry. How can you put a price on the wonderful environments we have created over the last 200 years? We here in the UK have some of the finest parks, public opens paces and sports facilities in the world.
It is now time to encourage the next generation to come and work in our industry – and our annual trade shows play an important role in doing that.
For me, I was also great to bump into several friends and colleagues during the show. I caught up with turf technicians Matt Axton, Robert Weaver and Chris Minton and we talked about the opportunity of raising the profile of their TETO organisation (Turf Equipment Technician Organisation) in the coming months. I plan to visit their workshops at Leicester City FC and Copt Heath GC.
I also bumped into Alex and Keith Exton from Perfect Pitches who have just completed a very busy period of autumn end of season renovations for several cricket clubs. Regarding cricket, I also met up with Vic Domain and Andy Mackay and spoke about the ever increasing workload being placed on cricket groundstaff at County and Test level - especially with the new formats of the game being implemented. Also, I heard that two of our longest serving cricket groundsmen are retiring - Steve Birks at Trent Bridge and Sean Williams at Gloucester CCC. It will be interesting to see who applies for those jobs.
I also caught up with Simon and Vinny at SGL and hope to meet up at one of the football grounds to discuss the latest innovations in grow lighting technologies. Whilst on that subject, I noticed a couple of new companies also promoting LED lighting technologies.
As always there continues to be a strong support for our industry trade shows. Like I say, it will be interesting to find out the exact attendance figures for Saltex 2025.
If you wanted to read more about the show, you can also find my colleague, editor of Service Dealer, Steve Gibbs’ thoughts on the show here.
