Licensing Blog

Welcome to our Licensing Blog, which takes a light hearted look at our mysterious world.

The joys of Brand Licensing(Posted: 16-10-2008)

Brand Licensing Europe – what a busy 2 days. Congratulations to the team behind the show for keeping up the standards once again. The only complaint I could come up with was that the plastic Bob the Builder hat I was forced to wear at the drinks party made my head sweat!

Poor Advanstar – they badly underestimated the speed at which the great and the good of the licensing industry can knock back the free booze (although when I say free, we all paid for it anyway, didn’t we?). Within 20 minutes of the drinks party starting they were sending out for more beer. Fantastic effort!

Come kick-out time at 8pm I was lucky that one of our group knew the owner of a local pub so off we marched. For the second trade show in a row I ended up in a pub that served draught mild – it’s the little things that make me happy, you know. We later scoffed pizza ordered in by the landlord as they had sold all their food at lunchtime. I have to admit that by midnight I’d had enough – both pizza and beer!

“Spill the beans you dirty slag”. I don’t want to offend anyone, as I actually nicked that line from a blog area on some-one else’s site, but it sort of sums up the strangest of encounters with a fellow exhibitor that took place all day Wednesday and into the drinks party. I obviously can’t name names, but some of you met her and will know who I’m talking about. After “entertaining” us with the story of how she had slept with some-one the night before for a bet, suffice to say that myself and one of my esteemed licensing colleagues felt we had a pretty near miss, and considered ourselves lucky to escape with all our body parts intact.

Mr Paddington Bear!                                                  Kara - isn't she lovely? Ah!!!!!

Off to a second night in my grand hotel in Holland Road. Convenient, clean and small. Just enough room to get out of bed and make it to the bathroom, which was so small that standing in front of the sink to have a shave I had to straddle the toilet with my legs apart. Sorry for putting that awful picture into your heads!

We saw more costumed characters than you could shake a stick at. One day I’m going to be brave enough to either trip one of them up or push one of them over. What do you think? Should I? I bet Spongebob Squarepants would go down like a shot rhino (a popular saying in my local). I once saw Darth Vader at a show in Munich commit the cardinal sin of removing his headpiece on the show floor in preparation for having a smoke – his “handler” had him out of there like a shot. It certainly shattered all my illusions. I was expecting the Green Cross Man under the helmet!

Next up, the Dubai International Character and Licensing Fair – I’m not really sure what to expect, but you’ll be the first to hear about it.

P.S. Sorry about the lack of pictures of the show. I only took the one. Thought you might like to see my dog as well. She comes to work every day, and has a bed under my desk. She’s called Kara, and is named after one of the Valkyries in Norse mythology. Anyone want to create a merchandising programme around her?