Glassex - can the last one out close the door

Editor of Windows Active John Cowie has had a long relationship with Glassex, he has mixed emotions about the exhibitions cancellation

With the announcement that the Glassex exhibition is no more, the inevitable has happened. It’s a sad end to the glazing industry’s only national exhibition, but if the industry were honest with itself, support for Glassex had been waning for a number of years. That the end was nigh became apparent, when in 2008, Glassex was absorbed by the general construction exhibition Interbuild.

Having reported on Glassex for 15 years I have witnessed all that’s good and bad about the show. The attempts by various management teams to try and halt the sllde in exhibitor and visitor numbers have certainly been courageous. The problem of declining visitor numbers is highlighted by the general industry belief that the core audience, i.e. fabricators and installers, no longer view a national exhibition as key to helping them make purchasing decisions. There are of course exceptions to this, and no doubt a number of fabricators and installers will have attended Ecobuild. But the days of 5,000 to 10,000 visitors heading to a window and door exhibition in the UK are long gone.

When Glassex joined Interbuild it was as if an unwanted elderly grandparent was rejoining the family in a granny annex. The relationship was destined to fail, but this wasn’t through want of trying by the Glassex sales team and regular exhibitors. There needed to be a time when those involved said enough is enough and then shut the doors for good. Unfortunately time has now been called. What is disappointing is the lack of response to its closure. An installer local to our office only remarked last week that he didn’t know Glassex was still going, having last attended the show in 2003. Others involved in the industry such as Nigel Rees of the GGF have been a bit more compassionate about its demise: "For more than 30 years, Glassex was the showcase for the industry, where new products and services could be discussed face-to-face and suppliers, customers and competitors could meet in a relaxed but businesslike environment, all with similar goals. There was an obvious decline in Glassex in recent years and the winding-up of the event was perhaps inevitable, given the harsh trading conditions and changes in the way that business people view traditional exhibitions. It is a sad day when a £2 billion-plus industry cannot enjoy its own national, industry-wide showcase."

The machinery sector has been a strong supporter of Glassex over the years, but Joe Hague, Commercial Director of Promac was not shocked by the news. He said: "It will be no great surprise in some quarters that Emap have pulled the plug on Glassex. Promac vehemently believes there is a place in the UK fenestration industry for an exhibition bespoke to the needs of that market. We have supported Glassex and its various guises for over 30 years, as long as we have been in the business, as we believe it is vital for us to have a national platform to showcase the innovative technology being brought to the market by the manufacturers we represent. We hope that, for our existing and future customers, we will have the opportunity to support a similar event in the future."

Derek Bonnard, Managing Director was in agreement and is keen to continue to be able to demonstrate his machinery to the market: "Glassex has always provided Promac with a UK platform to present our equipment to potential customers and I think it’s unfortunate that it has come to an end. Demonstrating our equipment is the best way to promote it, so we will be sure to establish a new platform from which to do this in the future.”

Another ardent fan of the exhibition was Edgetech. Its Sales and Marketing DIrector Alan Fielder, however, is yet another realist: "Although the exhibition significantly reduced in size in recent years, the quality of the show hasn’t wavered – we won three new customers off the back of the last show and are still in serious talks with another two. That said, one has to wonder whether the days of a specific window industry exhibition are over as companies look elsewhere to exhibit their wares and network with peers; for example Ecobuild, Grand Designs and the Homebuilding & Renovating shows are all still growing in popularity. Unfortunately, our market is changing and for now the majority of budgets are simply too tight to do a bells and whistles dedicated exhibition."

The crux of the matter is that the fabricator and installer buyers in the fenestration industry have been deserting the exhibition in their droves. If anyone were to consider taking up the mantle of creating a new national glazing exhibition, the challenge would be how to attract a large proportion of the UK’s 14,000 fabricators and installers to such an event. Many of those potential visitors would claim that in their searchfor products they are well served by the excellent trade magazines, internet and active sales people from the component suppliers. They are busy people and prefer suppliers visiting them to sell their wares and are kept readily informed about innovations by the trade press. However, there does seem to be an appetite for some fabricators to attend European shows such as Fensterbau in the search for innovation. Having visited this show recently I can see why.

Windows Active will miss Glassex in the context that it helped us launch the magazine back in 2006 and provided us with a fantastic networking opportunity. It is hoped that if any national show is resurrected, it will be because the demand exisits from fabricators and installers. Demand amongst visitors is the key to any show’s long-term success. The recent Faster Fair in Stuttgart attracted 8,300 visitors and a show in the UK for researching your ancestory saw numbers increase from 2,000 to 10,000 this year. Numbers through the turnstiles make for a successful show.