You Need
Spotlight or Flood - A Tale of Two City Special Needs Shows
There is an
economic trend to larger less focussed education exhibitions. They cost the
same to market (marketing takes up more than half the cost of any exhibition)
as smaller specialist shows. Larger shows generate tons of "traffic" passing
each exhibitor but the lack of focus means that few passers by can be
interested in your offering. Big shows become monopolies and are always more
expensive to exhibitors* - huge economies of scale
are just not passed on. Why should savings be passed on when exhibitors
have to be there? At worst, large exhibitions become the Established
Church. BETT, BESA and BECTa pass from triumvirate to trilogy with a ban (as
there is at BECTa) on exhibiting at friendly, useful but competing exhibitions
like the Special
Needs Fringe.
Early this month Special Needs London became another casualty of the "Walmart" trend. Well it did and it didn't. Here is the story.
Special Needs London has been running for thirty years - the last
ten at the Business Design Centre, Islington. Tricia Barthorpe remembers the
exhibition from the Cumberland Hotel days. Tricia is NASEN President this year
and is a principal character in the drama. NASEN's erstwhile partner was the
Education Publishers' Council (EPC). A third player was the Times Educational
Supplement who were sponsors of the book awards, and we at Inclusive were
involved too as host to the
SpecialneedsIT
area which has grown to be about 20% of the exhibition.
My first inkling that anything was amiss was seeing so many EMAP exhibition staff at Special Needs London. Multi-billion pound EMAP are the organisers of BETT and the Education Show and, thus, rivals of Special Needs London. I went to the organisers' office.
"What is going on?"
"Well there are rumours."
There certainly were. And the rumours were true. EPC had joined forces with EMAP. The Special Needs London Exhibition was to move venue to Olympia and move dates - October/November to September and form part of a new "Education Show London". Educational publishers, we were told, wanted to reach a mainstream audience - Special Needs London was not delivering that (really!). We were not told that only seventeen of Special Needs London's two hundred exhibitors were members of EPC or that some publishers, led, I understand, by Granada Learning (Granada own David Fulton the key Special Needs publisher) were opposed to the move.
Worst of all, we were just not told. Some exhibitors seemed "in the know" at the start of Special Needs London, others didn't have a clue as the show closed three days later. The TES and Inclusive and, astoundingly, NASEN only found out from the rumours.
"Everyone will want to be part of the new Education Show London at Olympia" EPC and EMAP opined.
"Oh
no they won't!" we cried in unison.
There followed a scramble with several of us trying to rebook a baffled Business Design Centre for the Show's traditional October/November spot. Three separate consortia were each trying to collar the space while EPC worked a spoiler by hanging on to a booking they no longer wanted.
The happiest of endings. NASEN, led by
Tricia Barthorpe, teamed up with the TES to promote
The NASEN and
TES Special Needs Exhibition. The date - 30th October to 1st November 2003.
The venue - the Business Design Centre, Islington. It has the NASEN Seminar
Programme, SpecialneedsIT
and HowITworks
seminars. It is set to be a great show, with the added value of the TES!
And what of EMAP's "The Education Show London Incorporating Special Needs London" debuting at Olympia next September? Next year will be an interesting year.
Martin Littler 1st December 2002
*Prices per square metre:
EMAP BETT 2003 - £298, BESA
Member £283, Special Needs Village £238
EMAP Education Show
Birmingham - £288, BESA Member £245
EMAP Education Show London
incorporating Special Needs London £264, BESA/EPC £220. After
11/12/02 £275, BESA/EPC £234
The NASEN & TES Special Needs
Exhibition 2003 - £228. £209 early booking rate.
ICT Special
Needs Fringe 2003 - £195, ATIA Member £156 per square
metre.