Christmas comes early for Hale Events
Leading South West events company Hale Events Ltd have just pulled off a major coup by acquiring one of the UK’s biggest festive shopping shows to add to its busy exhibition calendar.
The incredibly popular Christmas Shopping Fayre, held annually at Exeter’s Westpoint, regularly attracts tens of thousands of festive shoppers. Little wonder too with the show featuring over 250 very diverse stallholders offering their Christmas lines each year, low admission prices, a free Santa’s Grotto and free parking. Exhibitors flock from all parts of the UK to be part of it.
The Christmas Shopping Fayre was the brainchild of Barnstaple based event organiser Grahame Davidson and he has been running the show since 1996. Such is the appeal of the Fayre that most of the traders automatically re-book their stalls a whole year in advance and a good number of them have attended for 20+ years.
It was an ‘out of the blue’ approach from South West based Hale Events earlier this year that set the wheels in motion. “If you ever think of retiring we’d love to have the opportunity to take on the running of your fabulous show” was the unexpected proposal from Hale’s Mike Sartain.
After much consideration and discovering that the Hale Events team would be a perfect fit for maintaining the huge popularity of the Christmas Shopping Fayre, Grahame realised it all sounded right and a deal for the handover has been completed.
Hale Events has been organising shows in the South West for 25 years and Managing Director, Mike Anderson commented: “We are delighted to add this popular and very successful Fayre to our SW show portfolio. This show compliments the range of business to business shows that Hale currently organise, and will provide a great direct sales opportunity for our clients, at a fantastic time of year.”
Grahame added: “Having got to know the Hale Events team I’m confident they’ll maintain the amazing success my show has enjoyed over the past 22 years, and I’m pleased that the Shopping Fayre will be in safe hands!”
Most importantly for exhibitors and shoppers alike is that there will be absolutely no noticeable changes to the way the event has been run for so many years and Grahame will continue to help with every aspect of the Fayre behind the scenes. The 2018 Christmas Shopping Fayre is already getting close to being fully booked with a host of new traders with completely different lines joining the many popular regular stallholders. As Grahame has said more than once “this year’s show should be the best one ever!”
The Christmas Shopping Fayre takes place 23-25 November at Westpoint, Exeter, and you can find out all about the show on the website at www.christmasshoppingfayre.com.