The Outdoors Show

Large consumer gear and adventure show at the Birmingham NEC.

16-18 March, NEC Birmingham.

This will be our 3rd year at the show and very excited we are to. You see we don’t get out much these days, apart from our 50 metre round trip to pick up our Monday morning jacket potatoes we go through the daily grind stuck in our Global Distribution Centre. This year we have booked more space, we are sure our sound system can fill it but can we? So what is the show to us as a retailer?

For a start it is a lot of work for just 3 days of retail and it is very expensive. However there is also the buzz, you see we design and make our show stand ourselves. The exhibition halls are a very different place before the doors open on Friday, Jim usually sketches it out on paper then we all head down the builders yard and pull on our tool belts. Between getting orders out we have a couple of days to build it, paint it and get it past building regs. The best bit is always hanging out the products but we have to remember where the wet paint is, by that time we are usually so knackered we just want to get out of there.

Friday: the warm up day. Last year we knew the doors had opened when we heard the bellowing voice of Brian Blessed. It is the best day to get anything remotely sensible from any of us. Visitors also seem to have some time on their hands (after all how come they are not working today!). It is a good chance to walk around ourselves to see what other people are doing and to see what events are going on. Before we can go and get our tea we must restock the stand.

Saturday: usually the big day. Your worst shopping nightmare, everyone is out to get the same bargain as you. You realise you have double booked lectures, you are hungry and the queue for chips is a mile long, our PDQ machine breaks down, somehow every scout in the UK knows we have some freebies to give away. The weather outside is glorious and you wonder what you are doing here. Finally you have no choice, you all have to go, it is closing time and we must restock the stand before we leave.

Sunday: the final day. The end of a weeks intensive work. Before the doors open we attempt to make the stand look shiny. We probably look dead on our feet but still try to hold an intelligible conversation. Somehow everyone seems to know more than we do, how much does Wee AIric weigh? what colours do we have the Fantom in again??? You may find the Chunk curled up behind the sleeping bags and the rest of us develop an unconscious habit of leaning on the closest object, even if that is you! Looking forward to winding down now but know we have to take the stand down, ferry it out to the van and drive back home.

For a visitor the experience must be very different, we would be very interested to hear what you think. We pay a small fortune for a few square metres as does every visitor who pays their money to get in, not to mention the costs of travel, so let’s try and make it as valuable as possible.

Tickets and more infos from the exhibition website