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 Amid fears that there was no longer a market for a French lifestyle event in the UK, following the demise of Vive la France under Blendon last year, Archant Life France have well and truly proved the doubters wrong with their first ever France Show.
The France Show 2008, which took place 18th-20th January at London Olympia drew just under 30,000 visitors over the three day event, which is a 56% increase on the attendance last year. This lends more weight to the fact that France continues to be a hugely popular destination for the UK market and still ranks second only to Spain in terms of most popular overseas location for second home ownership.
Working with the core special interests of Food and Wine, Travel, Property, Language and Culture, the first ‘France Show’ was very much the foundation for bigger things to come, with larger space at Earls Court already booked for January 2009.
The France Show 2008 delighted the crowds with a range of attractions with the use of the UK’s favourite French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli proving a masterstroke in bringing wider consumer appeal to an event which also hosted the UK’s largest French Property Exhibition, French produce markets, live music, CanCan girls, live cookery demonstrations, Champagne bars as well as seminars on living in France, French travel, wine-tasting, and learning the language.
Archant Life France’s MD, Miller Hogg was delighted with the response to the event. “Our three pronged marketing strategy ‘Love it, Live it, Try it’ was aimed to reach out to the three key markets; true Francophiles (love it), property (live it) and first time travellers (try it) - and rather than just hope to create an audience from our magazine titles, we spread the message far and wide, and into the specialist areas of the Show. Partnerships with Classic FM and the Sunday Times helped to bring credibility and awareness, while a dedicated, targeted online marketing campaign helped us created massive interest beyond our own media. The results speak for themselves in terms of attendance figures.”
“We now have a full 12 months to plan and prepare for the France Show 2009, which will be a bigger and better customer experience, especially in the travel and lifestyle areas. Planning is already underway and key exhibitors, who had an exceptional trading weekend this year can’t wait to book again when the plans are released.”
For more information, visit www.thefranceshow.com
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