Exhibitors and visitors agreed that the three-day Glee extravaganza at the NEC Birmingham had been a hugely successful event. As the exhibition closed on three busy days of activity, show director Matthew Mein spoke to GTN’s Trevor Pfeiffer and reflected on another memorable Glee.

“It's been an absolutely jam packed three days of so much good stuff going on. I’ll try and cover it off in this brief interview, but I'll probably miss bits out. Looking at the hall, we had over 400 exhibitors in this year with 183 new exhibitors at the show this year. There's been more for buyers to see in terms of newness, so that's going to really help the journey. I have met buyers that were here for three solid days walking the aisles because there was so much to get through.

“The other highlights for me were the Atrium and the not just the Green Heart and the benches there, but how we also built out the area with the Talent Store, having the outdoor plant area and houseplant pop up stores were great. Looking at the students that took part from the GCA members, that was a real highlight, how they've nurtured their projects along from January in the freezing cold to where we are now in extreme heat of build and fab effort from all.

“Talent Store should now be an intrinsic part of the event. It's about nurturing the next talent, giving them that opportunity to shine away from the store and take those learnings back in store after they've delivered something live at the show. You can see how proud each of those students were that took part in both stores on Tuesday.

“Then the other thing the other highlight was outside having the fire grill and chill space on the on the space outside the atrium. That created a real kind of theatre festival feeling. All the pizzas and steaks cooking outside, great smells, but great theatre out there as well. So that really added, I think for me to the whole depth of the show.

“I joined some of the New Product Awards sessions to look in and it was great fun looking at the, the passion that each of those suppliers had about their products. Probing questions back from the judges, but I think that really identified some brilliant winners across different businesses and new businesses which for me makes it the highlight of the show. 

“Visitors had lots of opportunity to find new products at Glee, not just in the new product area. We don't always get to see all the new products there, which can be frustrating at times, but actually the whole show just had thousands.  Thousands of new ideas that they could take back to their stores to sell to their customers. Seeing that is really rewarding. And some of the buyer feedback, people that, were here three days, but also just the ideas that they're getting and how they come away from Glee and how they think about their ranging, their planning post Glee. These next 4 to 8 weeks will be a really good opportunity to do that and start thinking about which suppliers they want to take forward in terms of their ordering for next year.”

Speaking of next year, Matthew closed with the dates for Glee 2024: “On the 25th to 27th of June. So that date line at the end of June. I think that's a really important thing, the quality of buyers that have come to the show over the last three days has been brilliant. So that's something that we want to develop going forward and continue the growth of attracting more and more buyers to that new timeline.”