In spite of galeforce winds that caused several high-sided lorries to fall on their sides and led to the closure of the QEII bridge on the M25 resulting in hours of delays, the biggest yet of London's Natural Stone Shows attracted more visitors than ever in 2008.
Attendance at the Show has yet to be ABC-audited, but raw figures at the entrance indicate attendance was nearly 10% up on the 2006 event at something around 5,500.
Last time, a 7% increase in sold space at ExCeL was squeezed into the same size hall, but the 8% growth this time, taking the number of direct exhibitors to nearly 250, meant an additional aisle had to be added – which, for those who were wondering, explains why there was an AA aisle this time. It pushed the Show up to nearly 10,000m2.
And certainly exhibitors from both the UK and overseas reported to be delighted by the high quality and good mix of trade, specifiers and developers who came to see them – and buy from them.
In spite of a 10% fall in the value of sterling in the past six months translating into higher prices of imported stone and machinery in the UK, exhibitors were reporting plenty of customers for their goods.
With prices rising, the low cost Chinese stones might be expected to be a big attraction – and certainly there were plenty of Chinese exhibitors and plenty of people visiting them as the fear of buying from so far away diminishes with familiarity.
However, the Europeans are not defeated. Antonino Dettori and his son Francesco, who own the Italian company Milcomar that has a quarry in Sardinia producing Oroe stone, were exhibiting for the first time following a Euro2million investment in their business.
Francesco said: "Half-an-hour ago a big British importer came on to the stand and said he didn't want to talk to us because we would be too expensive. But he sat down and we made a deal."
Of course, if the price of imported stone is going up, British stone becomes more competitive, both at home and abroad.
There were more British quarries exhibiting this time than ever and they reported a lot of interesting enquiries for some major projects, as well as plenty of smaller ones.
Clinton Haigh from Realstone said: "It's been the best Stone Show I have ever been to. I think this time we've had so many good quality people."
Realstone were showing the Generix fixing system with their stone. The system was also shown on specialist contractors Stoneguard's stand, with finishes including metal and wood as well as stone. And it was only one of many innovations at the show.
Keith Rackham from Norfolk company H L Perfitt, who are selling a 'V' cut lettering machine shown on the Helios stand, was among those who praised Show Director Richard Bradbury for the organisation of the event. He said: "It's a good show, you know. There's a real buzz."
Richard Bradbury summed up: "The best part of the whole two year cycle for me is when people come over to me at the end and tell me how well they have done. That's what makes it all worthwhile. And it's what we will be aiming to achieve again at the next Show. ExCeL is already booked for 16-18 March 2010."
Some of the stands:
Machinery suppliers Accurite had two stands, one just for the new own-brand range of saws they have introduced and one showing their established Denver marque of machinery and the Ghines range of machines, dust extraction units and tools that they have just taken on. The metalwork of the own-brand saws comes from China to Accurite designs with all the electrics being added in the UK. The saws are fully automatic with a profiling option. The saw at teh show had already been bought by Caithness Stone Industries. Mark said there had been a lot of interest for the saws at the show, especially from owner-operators.
Leading CAD/CAM software developers Alphacam launched Alphastone V7.5, the latest release of their advanced machining software for stone-working applications. They also showed their new Part Modeler design program for the first time in the UK. Enhancements to Alphastone V7.5's geometry creation and feature recognition functionality are backed by a series of productivity improvements that includes simple positioning of machine stops, enhanced clamping and additional support for 5-axis machining. The latest release also offers an oscillating toolpath option that ensures consistent wear along the face of the cutting tool. In addition, V7.5 incorporates Autostyles, an extension of Alphacam's existing machining styles capabilities, which permits sequences of styles to be grouped together and assigned to specific layers of the model.
Alphacam's new Part Modeler provides a low cost, protected upgrade route for companies looking to migrate from 2D to 3D solid modelling. It delivers around 80% of the functionality of premium design software packages at less than 20% of their cost.
B-Stone, the British arm of a Belgium stone group, were at the Natural Stone Show for the second time but with a new manager in Roger Lill, who was at the show with his sales team of Simon Notman and Veronique Rousseau. B-Stone are just completing a £1.5million move into new, 2,800m2 premises, giving them 50% more space than they had at their previous site. Roger said: "The show's excellent." They had met many new potential customers and had had had the opportunity to put faces to people he had only previously spoken to on the telephone. "There seems to be a lot of contract work – 50-100 apartment projects," he said.
Combined Masonry Supplies had a complete production line from Kolb, the German machinery manufacturers they represent in the UK, on their stand. The line was on its way to Montpellier in Cheltenham. The £160,000 line is 7m wide and 26m long, although it does not have to be in a straight line. In a continuous operation involving just three people, the stone slab is first cut to width, then goes to a cross-cut saw to be cut to length. It is drilled on its way to a Kolb Genius. The Genius is a manually operated workcentre, although Kolb say an automatic version will be out before the end of the year. Martin Kolb was on the stand with Richard Chandler and Richard Neal of Combined Masonry Supplies.
Colin Harper, Director of Al-Vac, was at the Strone Show for the first time showing the Batlift vacuum lifting device that can be attached to a forklift or crane to take stone from an A-frame and turn it to lay iflat on a worktable.
There were several innovations in using stone as a facing on other materials at the Stone Show, including one from Stephen Camburn being shown on the Albion Stone stand. It is a tile for fixing to floors or walls that has a 5mm veneer of natural Portland limestone on an 8mm porcelain backing. The stone is being sent to China for the tiles to be manufactured. The advantage is not only that the tile is thinner – in solid stone it would normally be at least 20mm thick – and lighter, making it easier to transport and fix, but it is also less expensive at around £70/m2 in 60 x 60cm tiles. "It will open up the residential market," Stephen Camburn said. And while the first tiles have been manufactured with a Portland stone facing, the intention is to produce a range of tiles with several other British stone finishes. Stephen said a number of major tile distributors had already shown an interest as well as London stone wholesalers MgLW.
The UK's biggest stone and machinery wholesalers, Pisani, had their stands facing the main entrance of the exhibition, which made a stylish introduction to the show and highlighted the wholesalers' latest stone collections. The stand was designed by Wheat Designs & Displays, who have also designed the showrooms at Pisani's new £10million, 2.4-acre state-of-the-art stone centre just five minutes from the London end of the M3 and 2 1/2 miles from Heathrow. There will be an official opening later in the year attended by plenty of people who were at the Stone Show in March. Director Nick Telfer said the stand reflected the direction Pisani are going, being inspirational and creative. Part of that creativity is in their own management, the main board having established an operational board consisting of David Graterex, Steve Corbett, Patrick Land, Paul Gidley and Keith Parkin, the group accountant.