Friday Mar 11, 2005

Trades Exhibitions Ltd, one of the UK's leading exhibition organisers, held Professional Beauty at ExCeL for the first time at the end of February. The show was heralded as a huge success after 44,000 visitors came through the doors and of these 7% chose to return to the show for a second day (21% Increase on 2003).

The move to ExCeL meant that Professional Beauty had more space for visitors and exhibitors. This allowed them to divide the show into 8 easy-to-navigate zones for the first time ever. Over 470 exhibitors showcased their products at the show. Professional Beauty is now the UK's third highest attended annual trade show (ABC audited) of any industrial sector and, in terms of the number of professional exhibitors, Europe's largest event for the professional beauty sector.

Commenting of the success of the show, Kevin Murphy, Deputy CEO and MD of Exhibitions, ExCeL: "We are delighted at the success of Professional Beauty's first show at ExCeL. Mark Maloney and his team produced a fantastic show, which effectively utilised the space at ExCeL and made it work for the exhibitors and visitors. Our flexible event space not only enabled Professional Beauty to increase the size of their show but allowed for a three day Spa Convention to run alongside it and our newly developed Platinum Suite was used for the largest ever Professional Beauty Awards, which included almost 1,000 guests for a black tie dinner and cabaret."

Said Laurence Green, Ellisons, Sales Director: "Its about time that the leading industry exhibition had a fitting showcase and ExCeL certainly provided that showcase. The feedback we received at the stand showed our customers were extremely happy with the layout of the exhibition."

Exhibitors reported a high quality of visitors an increase on onsite leads from 2003. Feedback included:

"ExCeL 2005 was without doubt the most successful show ever for the Skincare Sanctuary with 16 new salons opened on the stand during the 3 days, not to mention a bounty of extremely well qualified leads to follow up."

Andrew Bagley, Managing Director, The Skincare Sanctuary. "We at Tisserand wrote more business at ExCeL that at any other beauty show we've ever exhibited at. The amount of new accounts and leads was quite staggering. Great show and superbly organised." Clive Walker, Marketing Director, Tisserand.