News
BMF scrapped, public show due in 2008
Andy Barrett Jun 28 2007, 9:00am
MIA revamps show strategy, BMF bites the dust
This year’s BMF is cancelled – but next year will see the launch of a high profile new public show, in London, with one trade day
The London International Music Show (LIMS) will take place from May 8th-11th. It sees the merging of the London Guitar Show and Drummer Live, as well as two new shows, Sound Recording Technology (sponsored by Sound on Sound) and The Unplugged Show, at the Excel exhibition centre in east London.
This means, of course, that the 2007 BMF at the NIA in Birmingham has been cancelled. The show had been struggling to maintain itself after it was announced that it had been moved to September from July, and although many early naysayers had been convinced to exhibit, the selling point aimed at exhibitors appeared to be the survival of the show and important revenue for the MIA.
In this move, the MIA and the BMF organiser, MB Events, would appear to have pre-empted a possible disaster by creating this merged show, with the first day (May 8th) as trade only, and the remainder as public days.
One criticism that has been aimed at the current crop of end user shows in this country has been the retailing on site, which has the effect of turning a show into something akin to a car boot sale, while annoying retailers not present in the immediate vicinity. The MIA has assured everyone that this will not be the case at the LIMS.
“There’s no point in trying to defend what has past,” commented the MIA’s CEO, Paul McManus. “The important thing is that we now have the plans for a show that caters to everybody – the main issue being that our trade show now has public days attached – and we can now all move forward from here.”
MI Pro will be featuring a full report, analysis and comments in the next (August) issue.
