The days of sitting in a huge queue in the carpark full of packed up exhibitors, trying to squeeze out of the Motorcycle Museum are all over.
PestTech has officially moved on to pastures new – making its new home with the Wasps at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena.
Naturally, people were hesitant at such a big change.
The show has changed drastically from having three separate smaller rooms (where people flowed through the halls before heading downstairs for the seminars) to a large open hall and a seminar room in a meeting room upstairs.
The move had sparked a revamp of the show including vivid orange and blue carpets matching the NPTA rebrand, a professional registration team to greet attendees, and data scanners available for exhibitors.
The show looked far slicker and more professional compared to the dark halls of the Motorcycle Museum.
Seminar programme
Having only released the programme on the 12 October, the topics covered didn’t seem to provide much new information.
The Industry Moves On was a selection of mini-talks. Simon Forrester gave an overview of the work the Pest Management Alliance does. The message was clear - the industry works better when we work together.
Lucy Cottingham showed off the new BASIS Prompt website which looks promising. The Prompt register is now the second largest register BASIS looks after, so there's a hope that will show in the investment in the Prompt part of the business.
NPTA's Adam Hawley spoke to us briefly about the accredited membership, suggesting that "the process is easier than you might envisage".
Chris Woodard's talk about invasive pest species was very interesting in itself, but he admitted that the talk had been recycled from last year's roadshows.
The highlight of the talks was Clive Boose's talk about flies on waste sites. He went through the rubbish collection cycle and identified many of the problems along the way. Ultimately though, as Clive promised at the start of the talk - there were no easy answers for what pest management companies can do to help with the fly problems on waste sites.
It's a shame that the outdoor demonstrations were lost to the new venue.
Exhibiting
The new location didn’t appear to have dampened the enthusiasm of the exhibitors. The familiar stands and faces from the old venue (including us) could be found dotted around the hall, albeit with a lot more aisle space than the Motorbike Museum.
As always, we received a great amount of interest in our Servicing Membership, training packages and plenty of pre-registrations for PPC Live - which takes place on the 14 March in Malvern!
We particularly liked our spot this year, as you could see the BPCA stand right from the entrance of the hall.
The visitor number did drop-off somewhat in the afternoon, but overall the exhibitors seemed happy with the turnout.
The date and location for the next PestTech are yet to be released, but we all agree that the move to the Ricoh Arena definitely worked for the show.
Assuming they can find a free date in the Ricoh’s busy calendar of events next year, we wish the PestTech team the best of luck for PestTech 2018.
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