2015 will be the 25th year in which a furniture show has taken place at the Birmingham NEC – despite UBM’s decision to decamp to London, the new January Furniture Show is poised to ensure that the venue remains the transactional hub of the UK furniture trade.
At its helm is Furniture & Gift Fairs, a small event organiser with a big presence in the trade. Its directors, Laraine Janes and Theresa Raymond, are probably best known these days for their orchestration of the Manchester Furniture Show.
There’s no doubting that the pair have risen to the challenge – at 90% capacity already, the January Furniture Show is set to be the sector’s biggest fair next year.
In the May issue of Furniture News, the pair discuss the new venture, and the industry experience that made them the first choice to become the fixture’s new caretakers. In the meantime, here’s a few asides from the interview, in which they reveal some of their personal feelings about being exhibition organisers in the furniture industry …
What is the best part of your job?
Laraine: I have to say, working in exhibitions is either something you love or you hate. If you get the bug, then you love it, you immerse yourself in it, and Theresa and I have done that over the years. We’ve seen other people that’ve come into the exhibition industry, and they haven’t got the bug …
Theresa: So they don’t last very long! From the very first moment you arrive and the exhibition halls are completely and utterly empty, and you drive across the hall to the organiser’s office to unpack, that’s when the buzz begins – because you know that 7.30 the next morning that hall is going to be packed, noisy with the sound of drills and hammers and rolls of carpet being pushed across the hall.
It’s just very exciting. It’s exciting seeing nothing, then on the opening morning you walk through the doors and the cleaners have been there overnight and you just have this glittering, beautiful exhibition – it’s just a great, very warm feeling.
Laraine: It’s something you’ve talked about, and seen in your head for a year, and then all of a sudden it’s built in front of you.
And the worst part about it – still, after 30 years – is watching them pull it apart on breakdown. I remember, my first exhibition, I cried, when they started pulling it down …
Theresa: Yes, but you were only a child then!
Laraine: But you feel that you’ve nurtured it, put your heart and soul into it, to make it reflect your vision – and then someone comes along on the pull-down, and that’s it, and you have to go back to square one and start all over again.
"The worst part about it – still, after 30 years – is watching them pull it apart on breakdown"
Theresa: I think for both of us it’s a passion. And it has been for such a long time. It’s our lives.
On a personal note, I was very happy in January to book the biggest stand of my entire career – Global Home, 900 sqm. It was the biggest stand booking I’ve ever done!
What do you like most about the furniture trade in particular?
Theresa: There are a lot of characters in the furniture industry – it’s not all big corporations, there’s still so many family-run companies … instances where you used to work with the father, and he’s retired, and now you work with his children, you’ve known them since they were toddlers … we’ve grown up with the industry, and, to a certain extent, the industry’s grown up with us.
What were the most difficult times you’ve faced?
Theresa: I think the hardest times were right in the beginning, when we were working for ourselves. When we first started – really, from scratch – BFM and Miller Freeman (still Blenheim Exhibitions, then) had moved the Manchester show to become the summer show at the NEC.
I think we had to go out and see 95% of our bookings because it had to be face to face to convince them we could do it – I don’t know who they thought had been organising the shows before, but without the backing of the BFM.
"There were lots of people when we’d just started out who just dismissed us"
Laraine: When we first started out on our own nearly 17 years ago, one of the first people we went to see was Morris Furniture Group. Robert Morris came in and sat down with me for a few minutes’ chat before the meeting, and he said: “I think it’s brilliant, what you and Theresa have done, you’ve gone out on your own – and don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t achieve it.”
That kind of stuck with me, because there were lots of people when we’d just started out who just dismissed us …
Theresa: ‘Give them six months’, that was a common one – and here we are. It’ll be 17 years in December.
Read the May issue of Furniture News for a full interview with the pair, who discuss their plans for the January Furniture Show, which will take place at the Birmingham NEC between 13-15th January 2015.
