Licensing Blog

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Brand Licensing Europe delivers again(Posted: 19-10-2009)

Congratulations Advanstar (well, the GB team!). To borrow from old Brucie – “Didn’t they do well?”. I never thought I’d be saying that that an exhibition day was too busy, but the first day at Brand Licensing Europe was almost that. Still, I’m not going to complain. Everyone was in an upbeat mood, and tearing round like mad things. My last meeting, scheduled for 4.30 on the second day, turned up at 5.05 (after the show has closed) and went on til 5.45 (which at least meant I’d missed the worst of the traffic by the time I got out).

On set up day I was seconded into helping a lovely young Polish lady apply the finishing touches to her stand (why, I don’t know, as I don’t really have much of an eye for anything on the style front). Everything had gone wrong for her, and she ended her moan by telling me how grotty the hotel was that she was staying in. Bugger, thought I, as I realised it was the same one I had booked. To be fair it wasn’t that bad, although, as the bathroom was completely open plan, by the time I’d finished showering my wash bag was full of water and all the toilet rolls were soaked.

The show got off to a great start when I received a text from a licensing acquaintance who was suffering a slight rash in the gentleman’s region. Instead of his emergency cream he had picked up the wrong tube and greased himself up with toothpaste! To say he was minty fresh was an understatement. Upon bumping into him later, I could not resist asking him to bend over and show me his “ring of confidence”.

We had a Lennie Henry presentation which turned into his one-man show routine, and Paul Daniels performing tricks (with consummate skill and ease as you would expect) on one of the stands. Unfortunately the lovely Debbie McGee was absent. Anyway, I still liked it , but not a lot.

The exhibitor drinks reception was very welcome, and extremely well attended, as anyone crushed in there will testify. Bad luck to another un-named exhibitor who had the misfortune to see the upper of his shoe part company with the sole. He went for the casual look on day two and, I think, just about managed to carry it off in trainers.

The beauty and madness of the two days was brilliantly demonstrated by the aforementioned lady who asked me for a lift to the local Homebase after the show closed. Why? She wanted to take back the £100 plus worth of plants and pillows she had bought on set up day to decorate her stand. Would you believe they took them all back without batting an eyelid. Cheeky cow. Still, quite a result.

So now the weather has started to become autumnal and we’ve had our first frost, I’m going to disappear to Dubai and mid-nineties temperatures for the second Character Fair out there. I might just hook up with some of the Brand Licensing team for a London debrief over a cold beer………….