So I'll start with the London Stitch & Creative Crafts Show at the Excel Centre, Docklands. What a result.. finally a stitching show which doesn't involve getting up at the crack of dawn to get there & not only that but the show runs from Thursday 29th Feb to Saturday 1st March & on the Thursday they are open until 9pm. Fantastic.. I can work & then go to the show.
Well all that sounded wonderful in practice. Here's the reality of the stitching show. We get there & the car park is almost empty... this is good news & not really surprising at it is about 17.30pm on a thursday evening & most people are heading home rather than into town. Get parked easy enough & it's pay & display. No problem there, it is however £3 an hour. Ok. so how long do we get, knowing what it can be like at these events & how long it takes to peruse the goods, we opt for 2 hours. Any later than that & I'd probably be ready to keel over. We get to the show, after being unable to find anything to tell us which halls, I mean Hall, it is in & there we happily hand over our £9 per person enterance fee (yes £9 each).
Once in the show I decided to take it as slow as possible. No... not because we are 6 months pregnant with twins but more to the point if we'd have gone any quicker we'd have been around the show in a matter of 15 minutes & back on the road home!!!! Yes.. I have to say that it must have been the worst stitching & craft show that I have EVER attended. I mean some of the stands there were simply pathetic. It had its usual mix of papercraft & beading stands, some of the stitching sellers that are large enough to be at every single show on the planet but there was nothing else really. I found one stitching stand that was what I class as an independent. Some nice quick & small designs with a lovely selection of hand dyed pure silk threads, they were unusual so I made a purchase at this stand. I have to ask what on earth to Handbags, Holidays, Trollys, Toaster Bags (to name but a few) have to do with stitching & creative crafts.... sweet Fanny Adams to be honest.
This show was a joke... it was a nightmare... there was nothing for the knitter or the stitcher & I was & still am completely appalled by the amount that it cost to get in to this show. I would certainly never attend another like it & will make a point of being extremely wary of attending any other events organised by Trident Exhibitions Limited so that would be Sandown Park out the window for me as they organise that one too.
What a waste of time & money.
