The In-Store Show is one part of what is arguably the UK’s premier marketing event, Marketing Week Live and was held at Olympia in London on 29 – 30 June. 
It was a landmark for TPI UK as it was the first exhibition we have attended and I only wish I’d joined the company in time to do it last year, rather than just being a visitor. Anyway, more of this later.
Before I go any further I have to do a ‘Gwyneth’ and thank everybody for their help in making this show a great success. Colin for giving me the budget in the first place, EmmaRose for coming up with a great backdrop for the stand and for putting up with my OCD and ‘Virgo’ tendencies! Aisling for pulling it all together and for her help at the show (and for getting a much bigger hotel room than me), Adrienne for sorting out the transport, the gang on the floor, my wife and family, the cat……..(forgive me if I’ve forgotten anybody).
After struggling on my own to put the stand together in heat akin to the Sahara, it looked really impressive with a great selection of POS on show.
The In-Store Show is attended by some big players in the permanent and semi-permanent POS industry, as well as other related products and services and draws some serious visitors from FMCG and other ‘blue-chip’ companies, print management companies and agencies amongst others. Although being a typical salesman I’m the eternal optimist, I have to say I was both surprised and delighted by the number and quality of potential clients who visited our stand and showed a genuine interest in our company. I’ll go so far as to say that we would never have got many of these leads had we not attended the show, hence my earlier comment about wishing we could have done this last year.
It’s early days, but I’m already well in to double figures for the number of appointments booked following the show and know there’s many more to come (we even received a couple of briefs on the second day of the exhibition). There’s every reason to believe that attending the In-Store will act as a catalyst to help drive TPI UK on to the next level in the weeks and months to come!
Steve Lewis,
UK Managing Director.
