RHS Exhibitor Seminar 2012

This week, I travelled down to London, to attend a seminar being held by the RHS for garden exhibitors in this year's shows.... not just at Gardener's World Live, but also at Tatton Park, Hampton Court, Malvern and Chelsea. The seminar was held at their Halls and Conference Centre in Westminster.

The day started with an informal tea and coffee session and a chance to chat with loads of other prospective exhibitors.... lots of them exhibiting for the very first time, just like me. It is a very exciting, but pretty daunting prospect, especially for those building actual show gardens at these shows for the first time.

We kicked off by meeting all the show managers for each of the RHS shows this year. Lucinda Costello is the Horticultural Show Manager for Gardener's World Live, with Katy Gaunt Assistant Show Manager. I had already met these two when they came to visit me to discuss my proposal. These managers are our point of contact for any queries or worries over the coming months. They are there to offer us help, advice and support.

We were also introduced to Bob Sweet, who has been Head of Shows Development for the last 15 years at the RHS. He heads up the team of show managers and is responsible for coordinating the content of the RHS Shows.

Andrew Wilson then came to the stand to talk about exhibiting.

Andrew is an experienced RHS selection panel member, assessor, judge and moderator. He is a director of the London College of Garden Design. He talked all about how to make the most of the experience and how efficient planning was the key. Also to think about the 'reason' behind your stand and how you are going to engage your audience.

Mark Gregory then spoke on the side of contractors. He is the Managing Director of Landform Consultants.

Mark has built and designed many gold winning gardens at Chelsea and other shows and assists the RHS with assessing and judging show gardens. His work is with the large construction elements of many of the amazing show gardens you see at these shows and, although not relevant to my venture this year, it was amazing to see and appreciate the partnerships that evolve between the designers and the contractors. There are immense challenges often to be overcome with building such amazing gardens in such a short space of time, often in difficult conditions (terrible rain last year during build) and with very limited space at the Chelsea site.

We also learnt about Health & Safety issues and the protection of trees in the area of your stand... (not relevant to me as I am inside!)

A lovely lunch gave us the chance to mingle some more and meet some of the other exhibitors who are going to be at the same show. It was really great to talk about what we each had in plan and about our hopes (and fears!) for the challenge ahead.

The afternoon sessions gave us the chance to hear from some people who had already exhibited and built gardens. Sadie Stowell talked us through her experience as she heads to her 4th show garden.

Sadie is a talented designer and her Copella Bee Garden can be seen HERE.

We also learnt about the judging processes and how the press and PR for the shows will advertise and showcase what you are doing, as well as ways to maximise your exposure.

It was all very interesting and I am sure everyone left the seminar as I did... buzzing with information, ideas, excitement and a level of trepidation!