We have exhibited at The Knitting & Stitching show at Alexandra Palace in North London for the last 5 years. The exhibition centre is only a few miles drive from us here, so it has always seemed like a logical decision to take a stand, especially as we are a web based company and it is good to meet up with our customers face to face.
Knitwear designer Debbie Abrahams and her husband Steve Stowe always come and stay with us for the week of the show as they take the stand opposite to us - having Deb and Steve with us is another one of the reasons we have always looked forward to the show so much as it gives us all a chance to get some time together.
This year the show organisers decided to make the show a day longer - a decision made to ease crowd congestion within the show and ensure that more people have adequate space and time to visit the stands. From a customer point of view this was a good idea, but for us it meant an extra event day and so we set up the stand a day earlier than usual.
I always enjoy setting up the stand - seeing the space change from the grey exhibition panels to the Janie Crow clear and colourful style is a treat and I love it, although I do always get the colliwobbles a few hours into building the stand when it looks like it is never going to come together!
Knitwear designer Debbie Abrahams and her husband Steve Stowe always come and stay with us for the week of the show as they take the stand opposite to us - having Deb and Steve with us is another one of the reasons we have always looked forward to the show so much as it gives us all a chance to get some time together.
This year the show organisers decided to make the show a day longer - a decision made to ease crowd congestion within the show and ensure that more people have adequate space and time to visit the stands. From a customer point of view this was a good idea, but for us it meant an extra event day and so we set up the stand a day earlier than usual.
I always enjoy setting up the stand - seeing the space change from the grey exhibition panels to the Janie Crow clear and colourful style is a treat and I love it, although I do always get the colliwobbles a few hours into building the stand when it looks like it is never going to come together!
We had quite a few kits to sell at the show this year, including the the Imogen Blanket kit, the Happy Daze kit (which was the 2014 crochet club project) and the Nordnorge bag kit which is now available for sale on our web site - I will blog about that some time next week.
The thing I like the most about the Knitting & Stitching show is meeting avid knitters and crocheters and putting names to faces. It is always lovely to hear positive feedback from customers and get to have a chat. I was really thrilled to meet these 3 ladies who were all carrying their own versions of my 'Boogie' Bag - a design which featured in Inside Crochet magazine back in the spring.
We had a good show, but it is really exhausting exhibiting at such a long event and of course it is really expensive to hire the stand. We have not re booked our stand for next year as we thought it might be an idea to have a year away from the show and return in 2016.
