With this time of year being relatively quiet for TCM, it gives us time to reflect on the previous year and look at the plans for the year ahead – which are looking very exciting.
2022 proved to be a great year following two turbulent years of event cancellations. The industry didn’t know what to expect with changing habits, lack of confidence about whether shows would go ahead and escalating resource prices. What followed amazed us with an extended show season and appetite for business growth in all sectors.
In February we completed a new custom-built trailer for Mowerland and delivered a health consultation unit for long term hire to University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust for a staff wellbeing unit.
Two of our major clients Eukanuba and Cornish Mutual confirmed regular roadshows throughout 2022 and we embarked on a pilot high street field marketing campaign for a Vegan brand Grubby and another in the South West for Truespeed Broadband.
Our fleet of Airstreams were deployed to the Eden Project in March to create a glamping village which has been renewed for another year.
The weather started to improve in April in time for the Tesla Owners Group in Farnborough and Blackpool Coach Rally. May marks the start of the show season and with units at Pig and Poultry Stoneleigh, and Scotgrass in Dumfries, including the show organisers’ office.
June opened with a convoy of merchandising trailers delivered to Buckingham Palace for the Platinum Jubilee and our drivers got to see some wonderful sights, including Changing of the Guard.
One of the biggest challenges in our calendar is Hillhead Quarry near Buxton which is a heavy plant show taking place every other year and this year it clashed with several other major shows including Cereals and Royal Cornwall which meant that our entire fleet was deployed across the UK. These shows are then immediately followed by Rail Live and the Royal Highland Show – although this presents a logistical strain on us a business, it’s a challenge we rise to.
With the team continuing to work long days and nights, we launched a major roadshow for new client BASF Pharmaceuticals at farms across the Great Britain at the same time as serving clients at the Royal Norfolk and Devon County Shows and Red Bull at the Alexandra Palace in London.
July marked the return to our high street campaigns with Virgin Media and another wave of shows including the Royal Welsh and Great Yorkshire Shows. The relatively dry summer continued into August and we headed north to The Black Isle Show, Truckfest Edinburgh at the same time as Honiton in Devon, Zimfest Hertfordshire and then a cluster of our regular events in Shaftsbury, Chagford, Royal Welsh, Holsworthy and Malpash. We were also delighted to work with Castore including pop-up shops selling merchandise at Silverstone, and rounded August off at the cricket test venues of Southampton Ageas Bowl and Lords.
This would, in a normal year, signal the winding down of shows but 2022 was always going to buck this trend with pent up business demand resulting in a merchandising trailer for Redbull at the Hardline Snowdonia downhill mountain biking event, plus exhibition trailers at a variety of other major events including Carfest, Duxford Airshow, The Glamping Show Stoneleigh, No Dig Live Peterborough, Widdecombe Fair and the RWM at The NEC.
In September, Ragley Hall hosted one of our favourites – The APF Show, with a large number of event trailers hired by clients from the forestry sector closely followed by Tillage Live in Dunbar and the Northumbrian Water Kielder marathon.
The season ended in October at Brailsford Ploughing Match and our industry showcase event The Showman’s Show at Newbury. We then set out for the Eden Project to return our Airstream fleet for winterisation and repairs.
Over the winter we focussed our attention of refurbishing our event trailer hire fleet, on design and build projects for a variety of clients and the restoration of another vintage Airstream Hattie which is set to join the fleet for the 2023 summer glamping season.
In summary, 2022 exceeded our expectations as business returned with a bang and the event sector’s confidence continued to grow – and we are thrilled with the number of new and existing clients already in the diary for 2023, with most of June already fully booked! We will keep you up to date so you can follow our journey throughout the year ahead (including some exciting news about trailers for the King’s Coronation events at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle).
