The UK’s leading marketplaces for wholesale home, gift and fashion, Spring & Autumn Fair have announced a dedicated Community Development team, headed up by Community Development Director Laura Rae, focused on developing relationships with buyers to improve their buying experience.
With the launch of its game-changing new meetings programme Connect @ Autumn Fair together with the Community Development team, the show which takes place on 3rd – 6th September at NEC Birmingham, is offering the best opportunity for buyers to find the right products and brands that their customers will love.
Laura Rae, Community Development Director says, "We're thrilled to be part of the vibrant and dynamic retail sector, and to have the opportunity to enhance the visitor experience at the upcoming Autumn and Spring Fairs. Our team is committed to innovation and development, with a goal of making it easier than ever for visitors to meet their buying needs and strengthen their relationship with the show.”
Meet the Team
Laura Rae, Community Development Director
Laura is a project management professional with more than a decade of experience in the events industry. She has held responsibility within diverse organisations such as Deep Tech Jobs, Clarion Events & the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew cultivating dynamic and engaged communities for portfolios of events in healthcare, technology, conservation and finance. Laura holds a BSc in Medical Neuroscience and is a qualified Prince2 Practitioner.
Magda Musial, Community Development Manager
Magda has worked in global events for the last 10 years, in both marketing and operations roles where she has held responsibility for managing the experiences of many different stakeholders and customers both pre-event and onsite.
Amanda Kendall, Community Development Manager
Amanda is a community management & engagement professional with more than a decade of experience in the events industry. She has worked in community management in several industries such as healthcare, technology, supply chain & logistics and more. Amanda has worked in several roles within the events industry such as sales, operations and community management. She holds a BA (Hons) in Business Management.
Connect @ Autumn Fair is the new meetings programme at Autumn Fair, designed to help buyers find the right products and brands their customers will love, and for exhibitors to create leads, orders and opportunities in an incredibly efficient and effective way.
Offering a new way to shop the show, for the first time in Autumn Fair’s history, buyers will have access to detailed information on all 600+ exhibitors before the show opens with the ability to search and filter them by criteria that is most important to their business. This includes searching by product type, sustainability accreditation, minimum order value, carriage paid, and much more.
Making valuable connections with exhibitors has never been so simple. Buyers can request as many 15-minute meetings with exhibitors as they like, and exhibitors can request meetings with buyers too. These meetings are double opt-in, so they are only arranged if both parties are mutually interested and have availability.
All meetings take place on the exhibitor stands so buyers can see and feel all the products and, with valuable time saved, buyers have more time to shop the show for unexpected new product finds, trends, and inspiration.
It’s never been easier to find your next best-seller. Connect @ Autumn Fair is completely free for buyers to use and there is no minimum meeting requirement. Click here to find out the next steps or email connect@autumnfair.com with your questions - the community development team are happy to help.
