Which tile Shows to Go To

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Tilecast News features and analysis brought to you by Diary of a Tile Addict. [00:00:24] Speaker B: As we all know, going to any work related event, be it an exhibition, a conference or a networking occasion, can take a lot of our time. It can be interesting and it can be very tedious. And while it's generally worthwhile, it's often hard to judge which events are worth your time and effort. Now, tile addicts Joe Simpson has spent much of his working career over 30 years going to building and tile related events all around the world. So he knows what a good event is and what ones you might not want to spend your time going to. So, Jo, you're with us now. You think lots more people should be going to events for various reasons, and we're going to go through a few of the ones you go to on a regular basis. I think you've just come back from CHESAI and you're just about to go to Unicera in Turkey as well. Do you feel it's a good time to sort of reflect on what is a good show, what's a bad show, what happens around the shows? What are your instincts? [00:01:22] Speaker C: Okay, yeah, well, I think since I stopped working full time as a magazine editor and I've been doing more stuff as a consultant while still posting up on Diary of a Tarl Addict, I've started to see shows in a slightly different light. I've always had a very UK centric approach to it, but obviously with Tarl Addict and with the other work I'm doing, I've got a more global perspective and it's always frustrated me that at certain shows, I may well be the only person, not just from the UK, but from Europe, who's attending. And I don't really understand why, but I can see that, as you say, people's time is precious, so they tend not to go unless they know they're going to be benefits. So really, what I wanted to do was have a look at all the major shows I go to so Chessai, Sevisama, Revishdir, Coverings, Surface Design Show, et cetera, and give a bit of an oversight to people around the world as to what these shows, what makes them unique, what makes them special, and what they can bring to the party. [00:02:21] Speaker B: Okay, well, shall we take them one by one, then? So chairside we've just come back from, and obviously we're always very busy going down, up and down every aisle religiously. But there's more happens at that show, isn't there? [00:02:34] Speaker C: There is. I mean, I think this is one of the problems is that most of the buyers who go to these shows and to be honest, it is largely buyers rather than specifiers or other people connected with the tile industry. More tangentially. By the time they've seen all the key factories they wanted to see or the key brands, they really don't have much time left for seeing the rest of the show. And they are big. I mean, as we found the four of us to cover the whole of Chsai, we were doing somewhere over between ten and 15 each of us. Well, realistically, nobody's going to do that. So I was hoping to make people maybe have a look at other parts of the show and also people who've never been to a tile show to think, yeah, maybe a week in Bologna or three days in Bologna. Would be worth my time as an architect, as an interior designer, as a housing developer, as a local authority, specifier from wherever part of the world you are, because tiles are very universal and. [00:03:37] Speaker B: These exhibitions are in some very lovely places. So Bologna in particular has a lot to offer. [00:03:42] Speaker C: Yeah, Bologna, great city to visit. Obviously one of the many places in Italy that call itself the gastronomic capital. And Bologna probably has more justification to know. You cannot walk down a street in Bologna without finding a good restaurant. It's a beautiful city. It's not visited by too many tourists that get over busy. It does have some weaknesses. It's not the greatest airport in the world and its connections are somewhat limited. So you're probably going to have to come in. If you're flying from outside of Europe or even across Europe, you're going to have to go to one of the hub airports and then onto Bologna. And the hotels can be breathtakingly expensive, and I think you have to be careful about where you stay. I've tried most of the options. I've been on big international hotels on the ring road. I've been in smaller boutique style hotels in the city center. I've taken an apartment in the city center, and this year we had a small, somewhat comic house five to ten minutes walk from the exhibition center. And they all bring something different this year, the experience. It was actually quite nice to be able to go in and out from the show quite easily. You didn't have to struggle through the really cramped buses or ridiculous taxi queues. So that was great. And if you are wanting to kind of get to know a real neighborhood of Bologna, it was nice, it was a good experience. You can walk to the city centre in under half an hour. Maybe you don't want to do that, having spent a day trampsing around chessai, but we managed to do it. It was cool. My preferred route has always been to stay right in the city centre, because it's a great city centre. That's where you'll find all the action. And I suspect for every nation that goes there, you'll find 1 bar where most of that particular nation congregates. For the UK contingent, it's the Irish bar. Apparently the Spanish all stay in some converted church. There's a whole range of different places there. It's a great city for doing that. And there are normally cultural events associated with CHESAI happening around the city but I imagine that a lot of non Italian visitors are just not aware of these things. [00:05:56] Speaker B: Right. So how can they find out more about them? [00:05:58] Speaker C: Well, I think you do need to do a bit of pre planning on the website, and you probably need to change your opinion of how you're going to visit the shows, because if you're just going there as a buying exercise, you will miss a lot. There are a lot of talks and other educational possibilities at Sharesai. I don't think it's as well integrated into the exhibition as some of the others, but there are other things like Tiling Town, which is more practical side to it. There are bathroom and kitchen elements that can bring another kind of design influence to it. But I would say that the most important thing is to try and cover as much of the show as possible. Go beyond your normal routes, spend an extra day there to visit the bits you don't normally reach, because it's a very international show. Now, there is not just Spanish Italian companies. There's a raft of other really influential producers there, and it remains the place to see emerging design trends. [00:07:04] Speaker B: The start of the season. [00:07:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it is the start of the season, and now it is very much more. It sets the benchmarks. And the other shows kind of tweak what was there maybe 15 years ago? There were probably autumn and spring collections. One in Bologna and then the following one in Valencia at Sevisama. I don't think that's as true now, Bologna is the flag waver. [00:07:29] Speaker B: Okay? So of all the shows you go to, for European buyers in particular, you'd say it's the place to go to, or for worldwide buyers, I think it. [00:07:38] Speaker C: Is probably still the place to go to. But I think its position as number one is going to be increasingly under threat by coverings, and it isn't the place to go to if you're really interested in decorative wall tiles. I still think there's a big case to be said for going to Sevesama, Valencia, because this is an area where the Spanish still are truly expert, and some of the smaller factories simply won't be seen in Bologna. But the landscape is constantly changing. The emergence of production hubs in Tennessee, not to mention what's going on in Morby in India and in China and in other emerging nations. I mean, these are real world powers. And you have to factor in Turkey. I mean, there may not be that many Turkish brands, but each of them are enormous and they're significant in their individual rights. [00:08:32] Speaker B: So if you've been to CHESAI end of September, beginning of October, sevisama is then usually the beginning of February. Obviously there's Turkey in between those, but we'll leave that one for now. So let's try sevisama then. Would you go to Sevisama if you've been to CHESAI, or are you going to see the same stuff? [00:08:50] Speaker C: Well, I'm from Vital tile addict, so obviously I'm going to be going to both of them. To be fair, the people I know the best in the UK tile industry, there are a lot of them who will choose one or the other. And just because of how the market is, because Spain is so influential on the UK market, if they had to choose one, quite a few of them would choose just to go to Valencia. Unfortunately, it's suffered more than most through the impacts of 2008, recession, coronavirus, various other political issues, and so it isn't quite the show it was. I really hope it's going to get its strength back, but that's going to be determined by a few of the really big Spanish groups investing in it again. But I really hope that happens because it has a character all of its own. Unlike CHESAI, which is spread across a vast area in lots of huge halls, sevisama is much more compact. It's in one essentially one three story exhibition centre, and at the moment, they're only using two floors of that. And this is in a sort of cruciform pattern, so it is very compact. You don't have those awful ones where your mobile phone goes off and somebody's in hall 36 and you're in hall 19 and it takes you 15 minutes to walk to see them. You don't get that in Sevisama. It's all much more close together. They have all the half floors where the restaurants and the sort of meeting rooms are, so it's very easy to put it all together. The only bit that's kind of separate are the speaking, the talks, and frankly, I've never met a buyer who's gone to any of those talks. I think they're largely attended by Spanish architectural students, which is a shame, because they've had some wonderful speakers and they. [00:10:39] Speaker B: Provide translations at the talks if they're in a non English speaking country. [00:10:45] Speaker C: Yes, as far as I know, probably a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black here in that. I have never gone to any of these talks because I've always been there to cover trends, new products, whatever, and I've never been able to justify the time. And because they take place during the exhibition hours, you're doing one or the other. But I've been to the international press conference and things like that, and yes, they have simultaneous translation into Italian, Spanish, German and probably other languages now. [00:11:15] Speaker B: So service armor, then more compact show. How many days should you spend there? Chair size? You suggested maybe three days. [00:11:24] Speaker C: I think minimum three days for chair size. Four is probably better. Service armor, you can probably do it in two. Although, interestingly, I've been talking to some good colleagues, American colleagues, who visited last year. They actually found that because it was quieter and there were fewer companies, they actually found it more worthwhile. They were having better meetings, longer meetings, and ended up probably buying more than they would have done had they been there. A busier show more intensely. And I remember going to Chsai during the sort of brief gap in the Coronavirus lockdown where it was about half the normal size of people and all kinds of medical hoops you had to jump through to get to the show. But actually, once you were there, it was fantastic because it was so much easier to get around the stands. You could talk to whoever you wanted to talk to. People were really pleased to see you because it wasn't that busy. And I actually really quite enjoyed the experience, so you never know. And in its heyday, I mean, you're getting nearly 100,000 people at Sevisama and it was very busy. Cheersai. I think at its peak was 120,000 or whatever. I mean, these are busy shows, even if they're not busy, if you know what I mean. So it can be a bit of a bun fight. [00:12:43] Speaker B: So we're moving chronologically through the calendar year. The next show that would normally come up, certainly on your agenda, would be Revishdir. [00:12:52] Speaker C: In Revishdir, I've been going to for quite a few years now and if you're looking for fellow European travelers, even people from the USA, it's a fairly lonely it is predominantly, I would say, a South American audience there. But I love the show, I really enjoy going there. It's moved last year from its old Transamerica center to the main exhibition center in Sao Paulo, which is an absolutely enormous building. I estimated it was somewhere between one and a half and 2 km long. This hall absolutely vast, but again has the advantage of being under one hall. The downside is it is some way from where most of the hotels or where most of the international visitors seem to stay, which is in the Moema district, which is kind of essentially the financial capital of Sao Paulo. And Sao Paulo is a great big bruising city, so getting around it by transport is pretty difficult. The new centre is actually in a rather more attractive location and we were driving through the kind of main zoological park to get there, which was lovely. And it has a different character, I would say. The two things I noticed immediately going there was it is much more 50 50 split between the sexes and the average age of the attendees is much younger. And anybody who's seen what I've written about the sort of social media influencers there, you really notice it because it's something you just don't see at chair size, sevisama or coverings and you cannot help but notice it at Reversteer. Reversteer also puts on a lot of talks, architectural talks, and they are really well attended. I went to see a UK guy give a talk about ceramic facades a few years ago and there must have been between 1002 thousand people in the hall when he was speaking. Fantastic. Again, a lot of them are architectural students. I did go to that talk because it was somebody I knew who was giving it simultaneous translation. It's obviously they do get a lot of students there and I think that benefits the whole show. But what I really like about Revishdir is that you get to see companies you don't get to see at any of the other shows. So really indigenous Brazilian producers working in ceramic and other materials and you just get a different feel from that. So there are companies like Manufati I've never seen anywhere else who do absolutely exquisite materials and I've always thought an entrepreneurial buyer could go there and could stock a shop with unique stuff and really turn a few design heads. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Well, if you do do that, do tell us, because we'd like to talk about you. So would you go there if you were from Asia? [00:15:57] Speaker C: I mean, is that somewhere well worth think interestingly? I think the answer is probably yes, but the people who I see there or who when I speak to the factories, I ask them who they're doing business with, they do a tremendous amount in the Caribbean, which know not that surprisingly, there are a lot of hotels and other tourist developments, it's not a million miles. They are also very keen on Africa, which you kind of think, oh. And then you actually think, well, no, it's a pretty simple shipping route, particularly if you're going into some of the ports along the West Coast and North America, obviously. But the focus, it is a South American show, and so you'll get the buyers from Argentina and all kinds of other South American countries there as well. But I don't think that's an issue. [00:16:48] Speaker B: So you reckon for that then? If you're a buyer interested in something a bit different and you just want to get more of a global perspective, you'd recommend it, or if you are a younger person who wants to get really good insight into sort of the vibes from South America, then it's worth. [00:17:05] Speaker C: Going to yes, I think so. I mean, you get the big Brazilian brands, so the Portobellas, the Secretas, the Elianis and the Elizabeth and they have vast stands, I mean, much bigger than anything you're going to see in chairsia sevisama. I mean, the last one I went to earlier on this year, the Elizabeth stand was probably bigger than a whole load of UK exhibitions. On its own, it was absolutely colossal, but they gave them the opportunity to have room sets of them with the best designs, whole load of other ways of presenting know it's a really good kind of show and Sao Paulo is. [00:17:44] Speaker B: It a nice place to go out and eat and dance the night away. [00:17:49] Speaker C: I've had some interesting experiences there personally. Yes, I really enjoyed it. I know there are people who say it can be quite dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. I have always walked around there. I've gone to the parks. I've also given the people in the hotel kittens by doing this. They don't think I should be doing that, but I've always felt fine there. I wouldn't go to an area I didn't know, although that's probably I don't really know any of it. But one of the things is it is a big international hub. It is the commercial capital of Brazil. I mean, more so than Rio. It all happens in Sao Paulo. So the big airport is connected. You can get direct flights from most of the capitals around the world. Mine was, I can't remember, eight, 9 hours, probably more. And I would recommend doing that. You don't want to be messing about with connections. You'll still have to spend several hours driving through absolutely terrifying traffic to get to your hotel. But they are building some sort of monorail there. I don't know when they're going to finish it. It sort of didn't seem to have moved on very much in the last year. [00:19:01] Speaker B: So it's currently shuttle buses from the center or from this area you were talking. [00:19:05] Speaker C: To be fair, I'm always treated quite royally and I have a private taxi, it's provided for me at the hotel to take me from the airport to the hotel. But once you get there, yes, there are regular shuttle buses that take international visitors to the Moema district normally every hour in both directions. But you just had yeah, the one thing I would say is find out where your bus is going from when you get off it because this is a big exhibition center and the distance between where they drop you off and where they pick you up from is about half a mile. You don't want to miss it. It's not a place you could walk from. There isn't very much public transport. It is largely people either drive there or get the bus there. [00:19:49] Speaker B: So next down the line throughout the year then, is coverings in the United. [00:19:53] Speaker C: States, which is news about doesn't coverings, I mean, I still think sets the gold standard in how exhibitions should be organized. It's hard to see how you could do it any better than they do. Mean, that being said, it's a different beast when it's in Florida than when it's in Atlanta or where it's been in Vegas. It's been in Chicago and it's been in New Orleans, the ones I've been to. So one year basically it has one year in Orlando and then one year in another exhibition center. It needs a really big exhibition center. So at the moment, that precludes California. Las Vegas is as far west as it's got, as far as I know. And personally, I really like Orlando. You don't get the cultural elements that you get of staying in Bologna or Valencia because largely the hotels are all out on international drive, which isn't that far from the Orange County Exhibition Centre where it's held. But it's a fantastic facility. It's got abundant meeting rooms as well as the huge exhibition hall. It's very, very well organized. Everything runs like clockwork, it's very well signed, posted. They just know how to do it. And the main difference between, I would say between Coverings and all the other shows is that the value added bits, the educational talks, the trend presentations, the practical demonstrations are incredibly well attended and they don't get in the way of the show. The first time I went there. And I was going to go for a talk that was on at 08:00 in the morning, well before the show opened. And I thought, I'll go in there and I'll have a cup of coffee and I can just sleep in the corner. There'll be nobody else here. And walked into the room and it was standing room only. The place was absolutely heaving. With Americans keen to be educated about the latest in whatever tile trends I think this one was. And so from that day onwards, I've always made a point of filling out the day so before the showroom floors are open to go and do these events and then to do them over lunchtime and then do some of the ones through the afternoon and you can learn an incredible amount and there's all. [00:22:06] Speaker B: Sorts and sit down for five minutes. [00:22:10] Speaker C: You can get to meet people, you can see in depth things from real experts. The trade association gets highly involved in it. But I would say the best thing about Coverings is it was kind of formed by a collaboration between the North American Tile Council Assopiatrelle, or Confid Industria Ceramica, as it now known, from Italy, Asser from Spain, amphassair from Brazil, and so it has a truly international feel. And they kind of give over one day of the show, know, be Italy Day, there'll, be Spain Day, whatever. They do all of that, which is great. They have a lot more stone and machinery and that sort of thing involved, which is really good. They now have villages for different things. So I really like the one which has the artisanal producers in it. So you'll see some really fabulous small format, three dimensional reactive glazes and mosaic work and bull noses and all these other kind of pieces. One of the features they have, which kind of works for everyone, is they get around about 20 companies to produce a ceramic dog house each year, and they bring in dog charities, come with absolutely gorgeous puppies, and they set them up in these area, and these dogs run around being oohed and awed by everybody, and they just have a great time. That's a fantastic feature. They do lots and lots of trend presentations and they are really high class. I mean, they have some of the best experts in the world. [00:23:47] Speaker B: Do they all agree with one another? [00:23:49] Speaker C: They don't, which is sometimes where I get to come to play a role because I think I'm the kind of United Nations in this that I don't really have any skin in the game, as we only have Johnson's Tiles in the UK in the large format thing as a large producer. So I'm quite a good arbiter of these things. But, yeah, no, they do largely agree and they share a common goal of promoting tile and so it's a really nice place to sort of see a whole different approaches to how can you promote tile more effectively. Plus you get some of the brands that there, you get the American brands and as I say now, with Tennessee having become to be a really powerful tile hub, you're beginning to see some of the larger indigenous players starting to set the design agenda themselves. So it used to be a case where you kind of like, all the best tiles were Italian or they were Spanish. Well, you go there and you're going to see some really high class Tennessee tiles, but you'll also see the best Turkish. There's a Turkish village there with some fabulous tiles, you'll see some great Mexican tiles, you'll see some other strange producers from around the world and you just think, wow. Plus, of course, they have the emerging nations and last year, a lot more Indian tiles than they have ever seen there before. But one of my kind of ways I do myself is you look at a brand image and you try and work out where it's from. Used to be quite obvious, but now with some of these new emerging brands, really difficult to tell where they're from. And it's particularly difficult when you look at the product quality because they're all using the same equipment from System and Sacme and Barbarian Turozzi, so it's just a question of who's doing the design for them. And that is also international. So, yeah, I think it's a fantastic show and as I say, I would particularly recommend it for what the extra value items that are there, particularly the educational program, which is second to none. [00:25:53] Speaker B: Right, so obviously you're based in the UK and as you mentioned, we haven't got quite so many tile producers in the UK anymore, but we still do have a couple of shows that have fairly good chunks of tile stuff in them. So Surface Design Show and the Clark and Well Design Week. Are those worth anyone going to from outside the UK? Why would you come to those? [00:26:15] Speaker C: That's a really interesting question. I mean, both of them are very focused on the A D community and from where I'm sitting, they benefit from that. I would say you wouldn't fly all the way to the UK to go to Surface Design Show, but if you happen to be in the UK and you went to it, you'll find it a very compact, fascinating little show. It's held in a small hall in Islington. Now islington is one of the design centres in the UK, particularly for architecture that's in London. It's in London. Yeah. Sorry for those who don't know north London, and it's in a Victorian former horticultural hall. Quite beautiful building in its own right, but it is very small compared with these other shows, and so the stands are all deliberately kept very small, and because of that, the people exhibiting have to just pick one or two of the best designs to show. And it's not just tile, in fact there is normally not very much tile there and most of what is there is Spanish, which is no bad thing, but you'll find all sorts of other things rubber flooring, solid wood, cement, 3d printed materials, metallics, which is why architects. [00:27:26] Speaker B: And designers would find it fascinating. But then also the tile industry needs to know what else is happening elsewhere. [00:27:33] Speaker C: I think for me, 3 hours at the surface design show you can learn so much and what I particularly love about it is it has a kind of balcony that runs right around the upper floor overlooking the exhibition area and around there they always have students and startups who are displaying their work. Often it's degree project stuff in different surfaces and you see some absolutely incredible and really inspirational stuff there. And I just like to go and talk to these people, get some of their enthusiasm, encourage them to carry on because this really is the future of not just tiles, but the whole of this industry. [00:28:17] Speaker B: And have you seen anything there before that has subsequently then been picked up on? I mean, obviously the danger for any student showing their best work is that someone then nicks it yeah is that an issue? [00:28:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I have seen things that have gone into the mainstream. Not necessarily, it has to be said in tiles, but in terms of surface materials made out of recycled plastics and facades that you could grow plants on, things like that. Absolutely amazing work. And there are a few that are, I am aware, that I saw in the last couple of years that are reaching that stage where they've found investment and are now taking them on to the next level. So, yes, in conclusion, I would say probably not worth a long journey, but definitely worth it if you're a few hours from London. It's a wonderful show and Clark and. [00:29:11] Speaker B: Well Design Week also a different area of North London, but not too far away. [00:29:16] Speaker C: Well, anybody who knows me would know I'm an absolutely massive fan of Clark and Well Design Week and one of my ambitions is to get more people to Clark and well and to raise the profile of tiles in Clark and well. Thankfully a lot of the UK based distributors and foreign manufacturers are helping me to do this job so it's a really compact area of London but it's not an exhibition center it's not an exhibition center basically it's a collection of I can't. Remember exactly, but over 150 showrooms open their doors to the public. There are street events, there are temporary exhibition spaces, there are other buildings that are converted for the week of the show into exhibition spaces. So these could be churches, there's medieval jails, there's all sorts of stuff. And then there'll be people will park double decker buses and have them as exhibition spaces. There are street parties, there are food vendors there who all take who take part in it and basically it's kind of like a free form tour. Now, there's one thing, one weakness is it is weather dependent. This year when we had beautiful weather for every day, it just was fantastic. You get a really good vibe there. There's so much interesting stuff to see. And for me, because there are around about I think there were 17, there are 17 tile showrooms in Clark and well, but there are some distributor brands, there's kind of Parkside, Solas, Domus, original style people, and then there are manufacturers brands, so Rack, Marazi, Eris, Florim, Vitra and Cesar and others, so they're all participating in it. And then there was a pavilion with twelve really interesting Italian brands and I think it's going to grow and grow and grow that's one. [00:31:11] Speaker B: Do you register to go to that or do you just turn up? [00:31:14] Speaker C: You do have to register to go because there is a sort of scan you as you go in. And I wouldn't say it's strictly trade only, but it certainly helps to pre register. And certainly if you're going to go into any of the bits like design fields or the other themed events, they will have people on the door who won't let you in unless you've got a badge. But it's well worth getting a badge. It starts with sort of breakfast meetings and goes right through to parties in the evening and it's pretty full on. But you can also get some amazing things. I mean, a lot of the studios, they get their external designers who've worked on their ranges to come and give talks, to talk through their design philosophy, to present new products. In the tile one, that's where you'd find people like Patricia Coiler and there's some really top names participating in this. There's always something exciting, eclectic, unusual, visually stimulating to see, and it kind of makes you feel glad to be part of the community, I always think. And as it happens, some of the most impressive displays now are from tile companies, which I love. And this year, obviously, I was participating personally by taking parties of architects and interior designers around a selected group of the tile showrooms and other exhibitors there and explaining what they were seeing. And it was a really, really interesting experience because you suddenly realize that if you can explain to an architect what a sinking ink does, what rectification is how tiles are polished, why that worktop looks different from that worktop, because it's used a digital glue or a particular Polishing procedure. They really are amazed and they buy into it. And I was surprised how long you can hold an audience captive. [00:33:15] Speaker B: How big were your groups and how long did it take? [00:33:18] Speaker C: They weren't massive. I think the largest we started was 14 and they stayed with me for quite extraordinary 7 hours, where all we did was walk between showrooms and talk about tiles. And at the end of it they were still asking questions and the question wasn't when can I go home? Because they were free to leave at any point and they just thought, wow. It tells you two things. One is these people are interested, and B, that tiles are interesting. [00:33:47] Speaker B: They offer information as well. And they were fed, presumably at some point they were grazing. [00:33:53] Speaker C: Sad to say, they weren't. [00:33:55] Speaker B: No. [00:33:56] Speaker C: I only really realized it must have been absolutely starving by 03:30 when we finished. But I didn't have lunch built into my agenda and I am a Tar fanatic, so they just had to go with it. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Okay, well, that might need a little adjustment. [00:34:15] Speaker C: Yeah, we might tweak that for next year if we do it again. [00:34:19] Speaker B: So, again, obviously that's a long way to come if it's just for tiles. And it's not all about tiles, but you'd recommend people if they're in the neighborhood or happen to be coming to London or could time a visit to the UK that would be worth trying. [00:34:33] Speaker C: To I mean, yeah, people go to the Venice Bienniale or Milan Design Week. Frankly, this is probably as getting there. It is getting there. Media Ten, the company do it are also now running one in Helsinki, which Hannah did. Which Hannah? Hannah, our fellow tile addict went to, and she had a really good time and she met some really interesting people okay. That didn't have as much tile content, but I think it'll come. I think these are possibly the way forward for exhibitions because one of the things that's come out of the pandemic is that people have changed. The social element of working has been diminished a bit because people with people working from home, these kind of events reconnect with your peers, with your suppliers, with inspirational designers, and so everyone gets a lot more out of it. And the attendance was staggering all day. It's a really buzzy feel and yet nobody has to be there. That's the best thing. It's kind of all voluntary and makes it all better. And because showrooms are all kind of vying with each other, there's a lot more content there proper content, valuable content. So, yeah, I think it's a wonderful event. [00:35:48] Speaker B: So we've only mentioned six events there and obviously there are others that we're going to talk about more throughout the year. Which is your favourite? If you could only go to one, you personally, which would be your oh. [00:36:02] Speaker C: That is really difficult. I have a huge soft spot for Bologna. I really like it as a city and it's still a great exhibition and I have always enjoyed going to Sao Paula for Revishtir and I'm a huge fan of Valencia and Sevisama. But if I had to choose one, I think it's only fair I would go for coverings simply because they do it so well. And probably if I had to do, I would go coverings in New Orleans because that get all that fantastic exhibition and great food and great music. And the exhibition center is on the banks of the Mississippi, within walking distance of Bourbon Street. Yeah, that's pretty hard to be. [00:36:46] Speaker B: In fact, I seem to remember one year it was almost going to tie in with the New Orleans Jazz Festival, which would have been a perfect combat. [00:36:52] Speaker C: It would have been absolutely perfect. And then somebody invented Coronavirus and threw a fairly large brick through that window. So it didn't happen. But, yeah, no, it would have been perfect. It would have been pretty much Tar Laddock's dream come true. But hey ho. But no, I think I will give it to coverings, but who knows, I might go to Unicera in a few weeks time and think, oh, maybe this is the one for me. Who knows? I will be reporting back. [00:37:20] Speaker B: So. Thank you, Joe. I think that gives everyone a good overview of what each of those shows are all about and maybe which one might be worth a shot. [00:37:28] Speaker C: Yeah, finally, can I just say, we're going to be posting up links, whatever, on Diary of a Tile Addict so you can follow the leads, plan your visits, see what's coming up, get your diary settled for 2024, anything, you know. [00:37:42] Speaker B: That'S happening, you'll make a point of. [00:37:44] Speaker C: Saying, I will do as I say. It's never been that easy to do a kind of product preview because people tend to play their cards closer to their chest. But the other events, the speakers, tend to be arranged further ahead. So you can plan those, and I know most people don't, but I would really recommend you, even if it's just one show, just go to coverings and really spend the whole week there and take in all the opportunities. I think you'll find it's a week well spent. And the other thing I would say about the next year, it's going to be in Atlanta. So in 2025, I think the next time it's going to be in Orlando. The other great thing about Orlando is because of all the Disney World and all the other sort of theme parks and attractions there, again, loads of flights, loads of hotels, pretty good value, whereas. [00:38:37] Speaker B: CHESAI in particular has got very expensive. [00:38:40] Speaker C: Has got very expensive. Valencia is good. You can still get really good hotel there. I have to say, I don't know about Sao Paulo because I've never had to pay a bill there. Thank you very much, Anne Fasser, for looking after me all these years. So I don't actually know how much the hotels are, but we will do. [00:39:00] Speaker B: Some research before that one so we can give people some idea of the areas that are best to go to. We'll do some research on that and get back to you all. [00:39:08] Speaker C: All right, bye for now. [00:39:10] Speaker B: Okay. Thank you, Jo. [00:39:12] Speaker A: You've been listening to tilecast produced by Diary of a Tile addict. 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