The event billed as ‘the UK’s biggest angling show’ was indeed a good show for the public that wanted to buy tackle at discounted prices. But an angling show it definitely was not. 
Where were the big manufacturers, Shakespeare, Shimano, Fox, Masterline, Daiwa, Abu, Leeda, etc, etc? Missing, that’s where, nowhere to be seen. As a display of tackle it was a poor show compared to the Go Fishing show at the NEC, being restricted to the bits and pieces the retailers were selling off at often vastly reduced prices. Which is great for the public short term but is doubtful whether it is good for the trade long term. Which may be as good a reason as any why the big boys were absent.
The hall was crowded at times, but many of them were the shooters and crafts visitors who had similar shows in adjacent halls, who were there mainly to look but not to buy.
It is the fact that tackle can be bought as well as seen that makes the difference to the crowd-pulling factor, as the Go Fishing show at the NEC realised this year. But what a shame that we can’t have just one, huge, angling show where all the major manufacturers products can be seen, AND where the retailers can sell them. 
No doubt the show will be hailed as a great success, which in some ways it was. In reality it was no more than a street market for cheap tackle. As an event, a spectacular, it was sadly lacking.
FISHINGmagic.com was busier on the Saturday than the Sunday, but the strange thing was that more of the visitors had e-mail addresses and joined our web site community on Sunday. Coincidence? Who knows, but it was a success as far as we were concerned.
See Digital Diary for the inside info about FISHINGmagic.com at the show.
