Read in full in the August issue of GTN on-line here or as text below

I’ve been attending Glee since 1988, when I became a junior publisher of Garden Trade News and every year there has always been chatter about the size of the show, the numbers and quality of the audience and often about the date of the show. However, this year I was struck by the volume of discussion and sometimes quite vitriolic comment about the timing of Glee.

At GTN and GTN Xtra we try our hardest not to report on speculation and general gossip and instead stake our reputation on bringing you stories based on fact with reports on actual ideas and inspiration happening in the market.  As many of you will know we are also media partners of both Glee and SOLEX, so any comment we make may be construed as biased. What follows is comment from me, Trevor Pfeiffer, based on my recollections over the past 35 years, with the sole intention of helping to make all trade shows for our industry successful for both exhibitors and retailers, highlighting some past actions and trends that are perhaps being missed. Many in our industry appear to have short memories…

Let’s start with the elephant in the room:  the timing of Glee. Despite many exhibitors telling me at the end of Glee 2023 that they had had a very successful show, if I had received £10 for every time someone told me it should be in September, I could have doubled the money raised for Greenfingers on Floral Thursday!

Some of the comments about moving back to September were based on the fact that Glee in September 2021 was their most successful Glee ever and neither of the June events since then matched that. Does that mean they have forgotten that Glee in September 2021 was the first show post Covid, when everyone met up for the first time since lockdowns and went mad, buying more than ever before to make sure they were not caught short in 2022? That post-Covid boost certainly made Glee 2021 a huge success, but in itself created a situation where retailers had so much stock left in 2022 that they didn’t need or want to buy much new, and probably wouldn’t have had, whether Glee was in June or September.  And the situation isn’t much different this year with stocks bought in 2021 still selling through at retail due to the later than usual summer.

Those with longer memories will cast their minds back to the Glee shows of the five or six years prior to Covid when the talk was of retailers either having completed all their ranging or buying decisions prior to September and therefore not attending in force or being too busy setting up Christmas retailing to be able to spare staff to go to Glee.  The general consensus was that something needed to change, and I know the Glee team spent years consulting with exhibitors and retailers about the issue.

Strategically for our industry, the move to having a trade show where new ideas and new product ranges can be shown right at the end of the previous season would seem an obvious winner.  The world’s biggest garden and outdoor leisure trade show, Spoga + gafa in Koln also came to the same conclusion. Especially as the earlier dates allow for prototypes to be shown rather than just those products which have already been ordered for manufacture ready for availability next spring, as was becoming the case with the September date for Glee.  Buying straight after one season for the next year is also the preferred method for the other main garden centre retailing peak: Christmas.

Moving a trade show to an earlier date for manufacturing and ordering purposes was also the factor that created SOLEX as a stand-alone show in July back in 2008. LOFA members said they needed to get their orders into their manufacturing centres before September as lead times with the Far East grew longer. Prior to 2008 LOFA members had occupied Hall 2 and part of Hall 3 at Glee. 

It's rather ironic that the sale of Glee to Emap back in the 1990s ended up essentially funding the set-up of SOLEX as a members only show. I can vividly recall walking around Glee in 1989 with David Arculus, Emap’s Deputy MD, who said that Glee would be a great show for Emap to buy and sit alongside Spring Fair, which it had bought earlier that year.  My comment was that as a trade show owned and organised by the industry, that probably wouldn’t happen.  I was wrong, and Emap did buy Glee.  LOFA was one of the shareholders of Glee and as a membership organisation use their funds to help LOFA members and the sales of their products, giving them the ability to set up SOLEX (at Telford from 2008 to 2012) and subsequently at the NEC, always in early July.

At SOLEX this year many retailers were commenting on the inconvenience of having to travel to the NEC twice within three weeks for Glee and then SOLEX.  Those with long memories will recall the joy with which having SOLEX separate from Glee was greeted: “It’s great to be able to spend as much time as a I want buying furniture and BBQS’s at SOLEX and then being able to focus on gardening at Glee, when before we were having to squeeze them both into one trip” was a typical comment from retailers.  The call this year was for both shows to happen at the same time.  With pressure on time today and the wide availability of suppliers showroom visits, post Covid, that may be a good route for the industry.

That doesn’t, however, resolve the issue of the cries to move Glee back to September. I doubt if SOLEX will be moving back after 14 years of a show in July.

I heard plenty of comment that smaller retailers weren’t going to attend Glee this year.  I personally bumped into plenty of folk from smaller garden centres, but I can imagine that some retailers who still have much too much stock from 2021’s ordering frenzy to sell through would prefer to stay at their centre to help sell that through.  It’s quite likely they could still be doing that this Autumn, so possibly having Glee in September may not solve that issue.

On the positive side, I’ve heard much more feedback from retailers, both big and small, who are taking a more strategic view of their buying and ranging, who understand the value of the earlier trade show date to give them more food for thought and planning and so that next year’s ranges and products can be put to bed before Christmas gets into gear.

My personal view is that the best time for Glee would be early July, but that is when SOLEX happens, and NEC contracts usually include non-competing events exclusion clauses so there would have to be plenty of negotiations to make that move.

If Glee is to be useful to groups and chains - including those on the fringes of gardening i.e. High Street and discounters – then September may be too late for them and my concern about moving back to the later date is that we may or may not get the smaller retailers to the event (as mentioned above) but we decrease the opportunity for new exhibitors and new products to be seen and listed by those retailers who need and want to plan their business in a strategic manner.

As I stated at the start of this article, as media partners we are only interested in the success of all our trade shows for both exhibitors and retailers.  At the end of the day, GTN won’t have any say in the timings as that is down to the owners and organisers of the events; however, we hope people’s short memories don’t lead us down a path that could be in the wrong direction.

Ken Cox of Glendoick Garden Centre replies to the GTN comment:

Dear Trevor

Trade Shows

The problem with trade shows is not about the date. There are 3 shows we would like to attend. HTA plant show, GLEE and Solex…

You can no longer easily fly down to Birmingham from Scotland in a day. So all would require expensive over night stays.

So we did not attend any of them, for the first time. And we won't be attending any of them until the matter is resolved. Early July would be ideal for all of them… from our point of view.

HTA plant show is too early to buy any stock for the following year. The location is not easy to get to without a car and nobody has catalogues ready. I used to be a judge for the new plants showcase. This was worth going to, but we never did much business there.

I have not, as far as I am aware, been asked formally by anyone why we don’t attend shows and what would persuade us to do so. I think the industry should ask those interested parties. Those who don’t attend are the ones whose views are most important, to find out what would persuade them to change their minds.

GLEE is reluctant to publish visitor figures, but again this is the sort of thing which the industry needs to know, I think.

As media partner you are not really able to stir the pot… but it needs stirring…

Ken Cox, Glendoick.