The Great British Eyewear Show (GBES) is back. Yes, back and bigger than ever. In fact, the space we hired is so big that I need to come up with silly ideas to fill it up. Silly ideas are my speciality.
First of all, the practicalities of putting on GBES. My first thought was to check to see if the other brands want to join us and within 24 hours I’d sold all the spaces we allocated. I say sold but this is a show for independent brands and independent opticians. I’m not making a profit unless you consider the barista station finding its way into my factory post-show a profit. No, I’m putting this event on because I love to put on a show and the industry (and me) needs a show right now.
I wouldn’t have done it if the first outing hadn’t been a success. I was quite nervous last time but this time around the conversation was all about what extra we could do.
‘CET points, we need those. What? CPD? What’s that? OK, we need to make sure there is loads of CPD available.’ Last time we had Zeiss offering some classes but they were totally booked out. So this time we are organising more classes with other companies in addition to Zeiss. It’s been a lot easier to get the show going this time since we have one successful event under our belts. With a spot of luck, I’ll also be able to offer CPD points for designing and making your own acetate material. I’ve run this class many times and it is the most fun you will ever have in eyewear and, since it’s quite educational, I’m hoping to double up the benefit. Think about cooking, then think about choosing acetate coloured chips and designing, then baking your material. It’s fantastic.
Next we had to get a location. We did toy with the idea of Birmingham again but thought it would be nice to move around the country. Manchester was the ideal place (although I did like the idea of going to Newcastle or Portsmouth) but the only problem was that the best space we found was huge. As in really, really big. The Brickhouse Social just a tram ride away from Manchester Piccadilly and close to Old Trafford. It’s so big we could put a Mido sized trade show on.
While I initially wanted a nice intimate show, it didn’t take long for visions of grandeur to take place. ‘Right, I want to have a drone flying competition over there. Yes, six drones flying through giant glasses, why not? Let’s get the spa running again, everyone likes a massage. Over here we will get my friend from Manchester City football club to run a …’ Sorry, this is still top secret, can’t say anymore right now. There are too many exciting things that I have to resist talking about here.
The show meeting we had was fantastic because we can put on all these fun things when there is no one who can say no. Eyewear is a serious business but once some CPD has been earned and new brands have been discovered, there should be free drinks, food and fun. I’m well known for putting on a good party and I won’t disappoint, especially given the past few years.
Once we settled on March 14 as the opportune moment, a save-the-date was sent out to all UK opticians. At that point, there was no going back.
Over the pond in the good old USA, my preparations for Vision Expo East are well on the way. This is my most important show in all my 20 years. I am spending over £100,000 on this event and it’s a ridiculous amount of money. It burns my heart to even write this down. We are launching Catch London in America and so I’ve hired 15 new sales reps as well as running a nationwide marketing campaign to support it. Already my sales team are all worrying that attendees are going to be thin on the ground because of Covid.
My sales director (a dynamic American lady based here in London) is asking me why don’t we take the GBES to the US instead. It’s too late this time, I told her. The idea for the GBES came from America in the first place and now I’m seriously thinking about taking it back there in the future. We attended a similar event in Chicago before the pandemic started. Opticians in the US are asking for this sort of event again. We exported The Great British Bake Off across the Atlantic, why not our GBES?
Well, the answer of course is that we are an eyewear brand, not a trade show organiser. ‘Let’s see how well Manchester goes,’ I said. I smiled to myself as I imagined Beefeater style guards and royal look-alikes judging an acetate kitchen cook off at the American GBES. Like I said, silly ideas are my speciality.