Mike Fletcher heads to ExCeL London to meet an organiser team loving life under new ownership as they stage the London spring edition of The National Wedding Shows.
In July last year, Ocean Media Group sold The National Wedding Shows to operations specialist and MD of Maelstrom Event Solutions, Matthew Lambert. Although Lambert’s career in venues and operations spans over 30 years, taking on four annual shows for the bridal market is his first foray as an exhibition organiser.
It is, by no means a straightforward market sector to become embroiled in either. The wedding industry didn’t bounce back like other sectors after the pandemic lockdowns finally lifted in 2021.
All those postponed marriage ceremonies meant that many suppliers faced a backlog of bookings and could not take on new business. As a result, newly engaged couples were left with limited availability, reduced choices and soaring prices.
Two years later, those couples who had waited to tie the knot due to the post-pandemic backlog now faced a cost-of-living crisis.
The average UK wedding at the start of 2023 was £20,700 (source: Hitched). The cost had risen by 12.5% on the average wedding price in 2022, which was £18,400. It was up nearly 20% from 2021’s average spend of £17,300.
Engaged couples had to either increase their budgets or scale back on their aspirations by adding DIY elements to their big day.
This was the market that Lambert bought into when he launched Otis Media (named after Otis Redding – rhyming slang for wedding) and acquired the spring and autumn wedding shows, staged at the Birmingham NEC and ExCeL London.
Each show has around 150 exhibitors – many are SMEs – still nervous about committing marketing budgets if brides have less money to buy their dream weddings.
It would have been a risk for even the most seasoned exhibition organiser. However, the sale of The National Wedding Shows came with one key benefit – its vastly experienced, all-female team, headed up by group show director, Cassandra Denman.
With Lambert’s operational expertise and Denman’s heritage organising The National Wedding Shows portfolio, this could be a marriage made in heaven.
To find out, last month I went along to the spring edition at ExCeL London to discover how new ownership has changed the show, plus what exhibitors and the team think of their new lease of life.
“We went from being the only consumer show team in a large B2B-focused business to being promised complete focus, investment and a fresh perspective from someone with such operational pedigree,” Denman tells me. “We’ve always been a close family who lives together four times a year. Under Matt’s ownership, our combined entrepreneurialism has been unleashed and everyone feels like they’re now on this journey together.”
Improvements to the two October 2023 shows and the two March 2024 shows included a whole new shell scheme, which allowed for a faster build and has given the show a fresher, more polished look.
New features have also been added, including a series of DIY workshops and more budget-conscious content to run alongside firm favourite features, such as the Catwalk Show, VIP Experience Lounge and the Viktor & Rolf Champagne Bar.
Ana Firth is the founder of YouFloria. She says: “The 2024 spring shows in Birmingham and London were our first National Wedding Shows. We’ve been running DIY wedding flower workshops to help brides create cost-effective, beautiful wedding flowers while offering plenty of budget-friendly floral hacks to ensure their weddings are adorned with vibrant, fragrant blooms, without compromising on quality, quantity, or beauty.
“Our workshops were all fully booked and we’ve loved working with the organiser team to bring this concept to life. They’ve always made themselves available. They’ve been flexible and a joy to collaborate with.”
Initiatives to help the show’s SME exhibitors included the introduction of GoCardless, which provided an option to split the cost of an exhibition stand into monthly payments.
“We further adopted a ‘volume over yield’ strategy so that we could offer fantastic deals to exhibit at more than one show so that businesses could meet a broader range of couples,” Lambert says.
“Having not owned shows before, exhibitors were naturally curious to know who I am and what my background is. It has been vital therefore to get face-to-face and speak with as many exhibitors as possible during the run-up to each show and to reassure them that the team remains largely the same.”
Keeping the original team in place was of particular importance to Sharron Barsby-Masoura, founder of Exclusive Yacht Weddings. She tells me: “We’re a provider of yachts and luxury wedding venues and we’ve been supporting The National Wedding Shows for a long time now. The team is amazing. I wouldn’t want to work with anyone other than sales manager, Sonia Bhayani. She’s incredible, nothing is ever too much trouble and she respects my business and values.
“For us, exhibiting is all about having one-to-one conversations with visitors. Sonia always ensures we’re in a quieter part of the show to have those vital conversations without being drowned out by bands and entertainers.”
Bringing more high-profile brands to The National Wedding Shows was also a key part of the new team strategy.
“We understood that the more high-profile brands we could persuade to participate, the more confident our SMEs would feel about the number of brides we’d get through the doors,” explains Barsby-Masoura’s favourite sales manager, Sonia Bhayani. “We invested in a gift incentive initiative, which targeted major brands as a way of persuading them to take space on the show floor.”
The strategy worked and the team’s trade marketing (including brand incentives) resulted in a 73% rise in stand enquiries for both autumn 2023 and spring 2024 shows.
As a result, Charlotte Tilbury, Carvela, Phase Eight, Coast, Lancôme, Crosstown, Debenhams, and Karen Millen were just a few of the brands I came across while roaming the packed show floor.
It has all helped year-on-year stand revenue grow by 79% at the 2023 London events and 38% for the Birmingham events. For spring 2024, stand revenue grew by another 36% in London and by another 30% in Birmingham.
“The incredible success since coming under new ownership is evidenced in our rebook, which saw targets smashed by 6% in the autumn and then by 22% at our Birmingham spring show,” says group show director, Denman. “In our post-show autumn survey, 87% of exhibitors said that they would recommend The National Wedding Shows. Over 80% said that they would book the same size stand or bigger for 2024, so we’re delighted with how things have worked out.
“Seeing brides-to-be leave our shows having purchased their wedding dresses, plus exhibitors we’ve built relationships with over many years achieve such commercial success in a difficult economic climate is hugely rewarding,” she concludes. “We’ve now got exciting plans for the future of The National Wedding Shows and as a team, we can’t wait to see them come to fruition.”
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