Sourcing City's New Show for the New Year

Hot on the heels of Sourcing City Marketplace in September, which was hailed a major success by both distributors and suppliers alike, the Sourcing City Events team are now focusing on their brand new event for January 2013.

Sourcing City LIVE!, is a new product show in the promotional merchandise industry calendar. Uniquely in the UK, the event is exclusively for professional promotional merchandise distributor companies. Over 250 major distributor companies have already registered as supporters, and the official registration system is still yet to fully open. Over 100 top industry suppliers will also be in attendance.

Sourcing City LIVE! will be held on the 16th & 17th January 2013 at FIVE in Farnborough, and only recognised promotional merchandise distributors will be invited. The show will also feature online Appointment Diaries, ensuring all visitors and exhibitors can pre-book appointments to get to ‘see who they want, when they want’.

To qualify for an invitation, each distributor company must demonstrate a dedicated and professional approach to the sale of promotional merchandise. Companies not meeting the Sourcing City visitor criteria, or those considering selling promotional merchandise as a minor add-on to their existing core business will not be invited.

Before the show doors open, the event starts with two keynote speeches from Simon Weston OBE, and Matthew Cohn, Vice Chairman of ASI.

The concept of Sourcing City LIVE! revolves totally around the quality of distributor visitors. Sourcing City believe that by having only professional distributors in the hall, this will create an ideal environment for relaxed and in-depth conversations for all involved. There are no plans for ‘bustling aisles’, but instead a focus on ‘quality, as opposed to quantity’.

Sourcing City have also said that Sourcing City LIVE! has a policy of ‘No Distractions’. Business speaker sessions will be held outside of the show opening hours, allowing both distributors and suppliers to attend. However, they appreciate that everyone is investing valuable time and hard earned money to attend SC LIVE!, so nothing else will be happening to distract anyone whilst the show hall is open, ensuring that everyone has the maximum time to focus fully on having quality conversations with each other.

When Sourcing City Marketplace was launched, there were questions raised over holding an event in a Southern location. Any concern relating to the location proved to be unfounded, with many important distributors attending SC Marketplace from the South, North and Midlands, with more flying in from Scotland and Ireland.

Alistair Mylchreest, CEO at Sourcing City said: “We are very grateful for the phenomenal support we have received from the distributors we have spoken to so far, and the enthusiasm of the suppliers makes us very excited about providing an event that is so warmly welcomed by the trade.

“We are totally focused and committed to the professional distributor sales channel in all that we do, so we are delighted that Sourcing City Live! will include all professional distributors. Our aim is to create a new event that every quality distributor company will want to visit.”

David Gold, Carole Group, said: “We are fully in tune with the innovative philosophies of Sourcing City Live. The Sourcing City team re-invented how effective an event can be with SC Marketplace, and we see SC Live as being just as exciting and rewarding for our business.”

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