Show News: Industry news from Craft Focus magazine

ICHF Events announce strategic expansion

ICHF is excited to announce that the beloved Crafting Live Events at Sandown Park and Doncaster Racecourse have officially joined the ICHF Events family, marking a significant step forward in both companies' commitment to the crafting community. This strategic move will enhance the experience for both exhibitors and crafters, ensuring that the rich tradition of live crafting events continues to flourish.

Posted: 17 September 2024

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Autumn Fair draws in high-calibre buyers

Autumn Fair, the UK's leading seasonal trade event for Home, Gift, and Fashion, has once again solidified its position as a key order-writing trade event, drawing in a high-calibre of decision-makers and influential buyers. This season saw a 6% increase in buyers actively looking to source and buy new products, a 20% rise in the number of buyers with sole or joint purchasing responsibility, and 30% brand new buyers, underscoring the event's continuing importance for the retail industry.

Posted: 12 September 2024

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Top Drawer presents a ‘Whirlwind of Change’ with the opening of its A/W24 show

Top Drawer, the UK's premier design-led buying event, opened its doors for the A/W season yesterday. Welcoming buyers and store owners to embrace the 'whirlwind of change' that is the current retail climate. This edition showcases more than 500 exhibiting brands across the most in-demand lifestyle sectors.

The show's flagship sectors–Home, Gift, Greetings & Stationery, Play, Craft, Fashion, Food Emporium and Wellbeing–are complimented by Launchpad, a presentation of emerging brands from across all sectors who are new to the market.

Event Director, David Westbrooke said: "Top Drawer has a long, proud legacy of presenting store owners and buyers with products that will set their offering apart from the rest, and resonate with their customers."

Posted: 9 September 2024

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The Gift Fair Launches its Future Star Award

The Gift Fair is thrilled to launch its Future Star Award. This award celebrates newcomers with exceptional potential to the UK Gift industry.

This award will provide a launchpad for talented entrepreneurs to show off their wonderful products in way they might not otherwise have the opportunity to.

This year, we were spoilt for choice so two wonderful companies have been selected, it was just too hard to pick one! The Gift Fair Future Star awards go to Cheeky Legends www.arrthi.com for their colourful and cheeky greetings cards and Little Roglets www.littleroglets.com for their beautifully painted animal collection.

Cheeky Legends was created by Arrthi Little, a cartoonist based in Hampshire creating entertaining characters in her signature style 'Cute, Chubby, Cheeky'.

Posted: 4 September 2024

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New online gift tradeshow set to launch in 2025

The Gift Fair is an online gift tradeshow, set to take place from January 8th- February 28th, 2025.

Organised by Fabian Santoro and his team, this exciting platform hosts trade shows that work around you not the other way around. The platform is not like anything you've seen before – it's not a website, directory or meeting scheduler. Every aspect is designed to make trade shows faster, cheaper, easier and better. You can speak to real people in real time via instant messaging, video chat, exchange business cards and much more.

You can find established brands like Professor Puzzle, LifeCharms and Swing Cards as well as the hottest newcomers like Cosmic Cuties and BangoBerry.

Posted: 2 September 2024

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Autumn Fair sees an upbeat first day

Autumn Fair, retail's leading seasonal showcase for Home, Gift and Fashion, opened today and saw thousands of buyers walking the aisles looking to discover the latest products and hidden gems for their stores.

The four-day show is the key seasonal buying event for many independent businesses across the UK to refresh their store and stock up shelves in time for the festive period, and reports from a busy first day indicate positivity, plenty of order writing, and highlighted the importance of seeing products and people in person.

A huge variety of big name retailers, department stores, garden centres, activity centres and independent retailers attended including Tesco, Poundland, Elphicks, Blue Diamond, NHS, Willows Activity Far, Willowbrook Garden Centre, Blue Tiger, Leonards Hardware and Island jewellers.

Posted: 2 September 2024

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Autumn Fair starts Sunday!

This Sunday, the NEC Birmingham will come alive with the return of Autumn Fair, the UK's largest seasonal showcase for Home, Gift & Fashion. Running from 1st to 4th September 2024, this year's event promises to be a hub of inspiration and opportunity, with over 800 suppliers presenting more than half a million products. With 30 per cent of brands exhibiting exclusively at Autumn Fair, it's the ultimate destination for retailers looking to discover the latest trends and stock their shelves ahead of the festive season.

Posted: 29 August 2024

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New show director of Christmasworld and Creativeworld

After a successful transition phase, the consumer goods trade fairs Christmasworld and Creativeworld have a new show director. On 1st August 2024, Stefan Schopp took over from Eva Olbrich, who commenced her well-deserved retirement at the end of July. With the Conzoom Circle network, Messe Frankfurt links the most important international platforms for the global consumer goods and retail industry and bundles industry knowledge and expertise.

Posted: 22 August 2024

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Strong re-booking sales for Toy Fair

The Toy Fair, which will celebrate its 71st show in January 2025, has again welcomed an extremely high returnee booking rate for next year's event with the entire ground floor and newly branded Gold Zone (formerly Greenhouse) already sold out. With more than six months still to go, the show has also received a high level of new applications and therefore any companies still considering booking exhibition space at the 2025 show are encouraged to apply now.

Posted: 1 August 2024

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Creative Craft Show returns to Farnborough International

The Creative Craft Show will return to Farnborough International for a third year running, with brand new sister show, The Stitching Show. The show will run from Friday 30th August to Sunday 1st September 2024. This show is a haven for knitting, cross stitch, mixed media, scrapbooking, paper crafting, jewellery, dressmaking and stitching enthusiasts alike, offering all the very latest supplies, ideas, and innovations in the craft and hobby world.

Posted: 25 July 2024

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