Thousands of golfers defied the ‘credit crunch’ to visit the NEC Golf Show and part with some of their hard-earned cash.
Exhibitors who may have been expecting a tough time in the current economic climate were pleasantly surprised, none more so than the show’s official retail partner, american golf, which was running Europe’s largest golf store for the three days.
Stuart Livingstone, american golf’s operations director, said: “It’s been a great show for american golf. We’ve been busy throughout the three days and a lot of people have been spending money. It’s been equally as successful for us as last year which is very impressive given the current economic climate.
“It’s fantastic for us to be able to reach so many golfers in one place and we’re keen to maintain and build upon our relationship with the Golf Show Group for future shows.”
Various big brands at the show also supported this viewpoint.
TaylorMade had arguably the biggest presence at the show with its 18m tour truck offering custom fitting for the three days and a host of celebrity ambassadors making appearances and the company reaped the rewards.
Michael Stoker, TaylorMade’s trade marketing executive, said, “We’re definitely very happy. We brought the truck which has been good for us and gained some good exposure and our celebrities all went on stage and that worked well. We’ve got crowds to our stand from those things and in general it’s been a good show for us.
“We’ve had a lot of people go through the truck with the custom fitting. The people coming have definitely been a knowledgeable audience and we’ve been booked out for fittings everyday.”
And TaylorMade weren’t the only manufacturer to have enjoyed success, Tim Stephens, Nike Golf’s area sales rep, said, “The show’s been good, we’ve had a constant throughput of people for all three days and some really keen golfers. We’ve had a lot of knowledgeable golfers as well which is really good for a golf show so we’ve been very pleased with how it’s gone.”
Yonex’s UK sales and marketing manager, Dominic Bone, echoed these sentiments, saying, “It’s been great, we’ve been totally packed out every day. We launched the new VMX range at the show it was the first place in the world that people could hit the product and I think we’ve actually sold out in the shop, it’s been brilliant.”
But it wasn’t just the manufacturers that were doing well, exhibitors from all areas of golf were reporting enjoying a very successful show.
Andy Davies, sales director, for clothing manufacturer SubSeventy said, “It’s the first time we’ve come to the NEC Golf Show and we’re really pleased with the way it’s gone.
“They’re serious golfers here and we’ve been received really well. We’re delighted with the way it’s gone.We’ve done good business and we’ll certainly be back next year.”
Andrew Harding, Your Golf Travel.com’s managing director, added, “It’s been fabulous. The first day was fantastic, loads of people coming from all over the country, the second day was very busy as well and today [Sunday] has just blown me away.
“It’s easily the busiest day of any show I’ve ever been to in terms of golf exhibitions and I’ve just been staggered by the variety of people that have come from all over the country.”
One company keen to make people aware of its product was CentreCup which launched its new training aid at the show. Ian Melville, a director of the company, said, “The launch of the product has been fantastic. It could not be better, it really couldn’t. We’ve certainly got the interaction we were after and if we could have written a script it would have gone something like it’s gone over the past three days. The quality of people has been fantastic. We’ll definitely be looking to come back to future shows and the London Golf Show in April when that comes around.”
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