Trade Shows

A couple of weeks ago I was at one of the UK’s telecom trade shows – Convergence Summit North, held in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

I was up there representing ITSPA and drumming up new members. Trade shows have no business interest for me or Voipfone – it’s the industry talking, to itself. As we sell direct to you without any third party channels and build all our services ourselves we have little to talk about – mostly the industry is rather puzzled by us.

Being North it attracted far fewer attendees than the southern version in London in the summer and there are rumours of it being the last so I was happy to see it – Harrogate is a lovely genteel place and despite my 40 or so years down south, I still miss northern beers.

These shows are very expensive and it’s always puzzled me why companies do it. Partly is because they’ve got a line in the marketing budget so it just happens, partly it’s because it’s expected but mostly I reckon it’s because everybody likes meeting up and having a gossip about who’s got what job, who’s been bought and who’s gone bust. There’s always a party to go to and a sponsored bar so good times are had by all. In between, some business does inevitably, almost incidentally, get done.

Rumour has it that the summer combined do is in Birmingham next year which doesn’t have the same immediate attraction but who knows, it may have something interesting to say for itself. If it does I’ll let you know. And if it doesn’t I probably will anyway.