Professional Beauty North proves a success at new venue EventCity
Professional Beauty North welcomed nearly 15,000 visitors to new venue EventCity on Sunday and Monday to discover the latest trends and learn from the diverse live stage line-ups.
The final visitor number over the two days was 14,774*, with a large proportion of salon owners and directors.
“Manchester is back! With huge queues to get in on the Monday it was like the old days,” said Professional Beauty Group managing director Mark Moloney. “It was so good to see the industry at its vibrant best with salon owners putting the brands through their paces. Just about all our exhibitors had a good time. We're working with the venue to make the arrival experience better in 2020 but overall it was a great show.”
Visitors were impressed with the quality of the brands on show, with plenty to choose from across skincare, aesthetics, nails and more. Centred around a champagne bar, the spa zone was particularly popular, and featured brands including Thalgo, Image Skincare, Payot, Eve Taylor and Guinot.
Eve Taylor’s brand and education manager Matt Taylor said, “The footfall has been fantastic – a great calibre of people, and we’ve had a lot more positivity with the customers who came across to us. It’s been successful and we’ve got some great leads to follow up. There’s been an increase in students too, which has been great to see.”
Pevonia also exhibited in that zone, returning to PB North after several years away from the trade shows. Pevonia Key Account Manager Becky Cranfield commented, “The show’s been absolutely amazing this weekend. It’s been great to catch up with some of our existing clients and we’ve made some really good new connections from spas and also salons.”
Exhibitors in the aesthetics area of the show also forged some great relationships. “There’s been a good footfall at the show of serious, quality visitors,” said Peter McGuiness, managing director of Cocoon Medical UK, while Roy Cowley, managing director, 3D-lipo, commented, “We did a few deals on day one and people came back to the stand on day two who said they would – it’s great that a lot of visitors seem to have come for both days of the show this year.”
There were a host of on-trend nail brands at the show this year, including Nails by Annabel, Gelish, Brillbird, Magpie Glitters and many more. Visitor Katie Barnes, owner of Katie Barnes Training Academy in Warwickshire, said, “I was really excited to see Nails by Annabel here, and catch up with them, as well as Pure Nails and NailGaga. It’s good to see there’s more nail stands at the show this year, especially some of the new, smaller ones that are starting to make their mark. The show has been very busy and that’s been really good to see.”
The show also featured an enhanced networking and education programme, with new Live Stages including the Trend Watch and Natural & Holistic stages. There were also three separate competitions taking place across the show floor. Find out here who won the North Nail Championships, the Warpaint North Make-up Championships and the North Lash Championships.
The winner of PB's competition to win a CACI Synergy machine, worth £15,000, was also announced on the machine brand's stand.
The show will be back at EventCity, next year, when the venue will expand to new halls, creating additional space for some exciting new features.
Trams will run all the way to the Trafford centre in 2020. Save the date to join us next year on October 18–19 at EventCity Manchester.
(*awaiting ABC audit)