 Poster: A snowHead
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Yes, Toastertalby (she is 9 but a hard bitten powder hound thanks to Charlotte at Easiski who was a bit put out by the total lack of kids kit she didn't consider boring!) was rather smitten by the reindeer as well. Oh and forgot to add a certain snow rodent's stand was as tacky as ever and that idiot marketing the avy beepers was there again and his face was a picture when he tried to say the kids needed them rather than proper transceivers and Toastertalby asked how she'd find someone buried with one!
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Sun 3-11-13 0:31; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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haha... where's the like button
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Went today, for the first time in 10 years. Very disappointing. Where were the skis?! Fine if you wanted to check out the full range of beanies currently on sale. But hardly any real gear. The show is massively behind the curve. Don't they realise that freeskiing is the thing these days? But not a single specialist supplier of off-piste and backcountry equipment, apart from a stand flogging airbags. It'll be another 10 years before I go again, unless they get their act together. If they're going to charge punters, they should cut the cost for exhibitors. I was told that it was £20k for a stand. You need to make a lot of sales to recover that sort of outlay.
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I went today on a £10 ticket. I quite enjoyed it, some of the resort stands were good and had a chat with some friendly Canadians and at the Verbier stand. I got my free lift pass for Verbier, worth about £50, so well worth the entry fee alone. I saw a couple of the presentations...Henry's Avalanche talk was very good, and helped convince me that it was high time I bought a transceiver. Unfortunately the shopping options were poor (only really the much 'admired' Cambridge ski safety abomination and a small presence of ortovox), so I left the show transceiver-less. As others have said, there weren't that many decent shopping options full stop.
I also had a nice chat with Warren Smith on his stand, and bought one of his new DVDs. I was hoping that somewhere in the show there might be a place to buy other ski films, but alas no.
I was disappointed that there wasn't a tricks ramp, which is usually pretty entertaining. I didn't have the time or really the inclination to go on the artificial slope, but for kids it looked fun.
I also took up the £5 Gadget Show offer. It wasn't really as good as I was hoping for, with fewer gadgets on show that I expected, but for a fiver it was a decent couple of hours value and I saw some interesting stuff. I did get to try out the new PS4 and Xbox one, and some electric bikes.
Overall £15 for the two shows was good value, with the added bonus of the free lift pass and trying out the PS4. Not sure I would have been so happy paying a combined £39 full price for the two though.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Whitters, Yep on the dry slope, I didn't bother but in her session Toastertalby pretty much mastered going down on heel and toe edge, that piste stripping manoeuvre they teach boarders first.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| davkt wrote: |
| ...and that idiot marketing the avy beepers was there again and his face was a picture when he tried to say the kids needed them rather than proper transceivers and Toastertalby asked how she'd find someone buried with one! |
Brilliant! I'd have loved to have seen that. 
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Oh, and there were some lovely huskies there too yesterday, which given the amount of young women flocking around to stroke them are definitely on a 'to buy' list too. 
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| Alastair Pink wrote: |
| davkt wrote: |
| ...and that idiot marketing the avy beepers was there again and his face was a picture when he tried to say the kids needed them rather than proper transceivers and Toastertalby asked how she'd find someone buried with one! |
Brilliant! I'd have loved to have seen that. |
It didn't take him more than a couple of seconds to decide he better talk to some kids who didn't know about avalanche safety!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Highlights for me were seeing the aforementioned despicable scaremongerer James Aubrey Robson looking like a broken man. Too many twee hand knitted hat cos and geezers flogging placcy bags for gullible iOwners. Usually new stand that had reinvented the ski carry handle but the ladies that had invented the rubber incontinence sheet to help you slip your boots on no longer seem to be there. Sports Direct most interesting presence though one wonders if Head and Odlo aren't throwing their brands down the toilet by jumping into bed with Ashley. Westbeach seems to have become a house brand.
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fatbob, Well Talbyem is now the proud owner of one of those Zaini hats having been unable to decide which one she wanted for her birthday from the pictures on their website. Trespass seemed a bit desperate as well as I lost count of the number of 50% off anything on their stand vouchers we were given. And at least the snow rodent didn't have those hideous hats with knitted beards this year!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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We went yesterday, and whilst it was smaller and quieter than I've ever seen it we quite enjoyed it. Got to chat to Warren Smith and Chemmy Alcott, ate the obligatory 'hot sausage inna bun', had a good talk with the folks on the SuedTirol stand as we're off to Val Gardena this winter and generally ogled what few shiny new skis were there. I'd probably been disappointed if I'd paid full price for the tickets but with discount tickets then it was fine.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Hmm on the beeper thingie have just been doing some googling. Chloe has a Pieps Freeride, not the latest and greatest transceiver for sure but small and light enough for a scrawny 9 year old to wear without noticing if needs be. One of those can be had for around £85 from somewhere like Bluetomato and knowing Bluetomato if you wait a while some discount code or other will probably appear to make it cheaper. The Cambridge thing costs £60 near enough depending on shipping options. Really makes it a bit of pointless saving at that sort of price difference on safety kit in my book even it the beeper was something useful with say shorter range search!
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| PJSki wrote: |
| Scrumpy wrote: |
I cannot contribute to the thread as requested because I did not receive a "freebie". I do not pretand to be anything that I am not, nor to live on my past.
Posting in forums (fora?) does NOT constitute "journalism" in anyone's book but Mr Goldsmith's. |
It's called delusions of grandeur. |
Welcome to the new reality, take the Scottish news blog 'Wings over Scotland'. It's reach is far beyond what printed newspapers could ever dream off, through crowd funding it's just had the largest most in-depth Scottish Opinion Poll for years produced, something now commercially beyond the reach of traditional print or broadcast media. So that reach, that influence, that's not real journalism?
Actually, it's arguably far more important journalism than traditional media that might regard itself as true journalism - delusions of grandeur indeed.
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You know it makes sense.
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We went on the last day on BOGOF tickets and actually had a pretty decent time. Kids enjoyed themselves, did some tubing, both did the Burton Riglets thing and loved it (2 more recruits for the Darkside) patted a huskey and got photographs with the giant snowman wandering around. Me and missus made some strategic purchases at reasonable rates (new pack for me, new sallies for her) and made some very useful contacts for next years Grand Design. Also thanks to the boys being quite cute and some trips down memory lane at the Mammoth Mt stand, generally made out like bandits on the freebie side. Yeah its a bit thinner than it used to be 'Back In The Day' but if you get what you need, then so what, most of the exhibitors I spoke to said that they'd had a good show.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Wow it's polite in here!
I used to work for the Boat Shows, and year after year we would take an absolute kicking on the sailing equivalent of snowheads for putting on a show that had a much higher proportion of the available industry present than I saw in Earls Court on Saturday!
I went on a free ticket (was a finalist in that Crystal photo comp) and had a reasonable time but came away without making any purchases, or seeing the brands that I actually wanted to see - because they weren't there.
I'd have felt hard done by if I'd paid to get in.
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Poster: A snowHead
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I thought we got excellent value....even bought some extra entrance tickets for people that didn't even come!
Of course it helped that we paid £10 per person and then collected a lift ticket voucher for Verbier which was worth £50 per person. Although we have our annual passes we have friends coming for weekends and those vouchers will be all used by them.
As to the T&Cs on that...could not have been easier: go to stand, give your names (and names of the friends), get given voucher, say thank you.
The rest of the show was OK....better than I expected having read the reports here before we went.
Not a patch on the good old days.
What are S&R thinking of? I can see that they don't want to do a big stand selling stuff (well I can't really...Ellis Brig was busy, busy, busy) but their "virtual" stand achieves nothing....nobody at all was apusing to look at their sparse samples with a "oooh, nice...let's go to S&R next week for one of those"
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Got the feeling the only people making money were the catering - didn't see many people with big bags of shopping but beer at £4.70 a pint.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I went yesterday and it was pretty much as I expected. I'd checked the website beforehand so I already knew which manufacturers would and wouldn't be there.
I think the show is attended by three main types. Those looking for a bargain on decent kit, those who are out to get kitted up as cheaply as possible and those looking for info.
For those wanting to get kitted out for next to nothing there was the big sportsdirect.com had it stitched up.
Of the retailers, EB has always had a strong presence there, and I can understand why S&R maybe couldn't be bothered to try and compete. They had a smaller stand area, so doing it the way they did will have meant only two or three employees out of the stores as well as not having to shift a load of stock. Also, bear in mind S&R were in difficulty not too long ago. A show stand of that size is a significant cost so maybe they were just trying to keep costs down to a token presence.
Talking to a few folk I know who were exhibiting, they were generally fielding genuine questions from interested skiers wanting more info about kit, but I think a telling sign is how often they are being asked things like "what's your cheapest [whatever]". In one case, a woman was asking if a manufacturer had any boots that would be under £100.
The show serves a purpose, but I think there are unreasonable expectations from both ends of the skiing public. The bottom end are looking for car-boot-sale bargains and the top end are wanting to see more kit. There's not enough money to be made from either end in isolation so what we get is a mix of both which doesn't satisfy either 100%.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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One thing I noticed this year was the number of companies aiming squarely at the gap-year market, either through work the season promotions (Espirit had a whole stand dedicated to recruiting, and another for advertising holidays) or offering instructor training. I think I counted half a dozen or more stalls touting 'learn to be a qualified ski instructor' courses.
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| Richard_Sideways wrote: |
| One thing I noticed this year was the number of companies aiming squarely at the gap-year market, either through work the season promotions (Espirit had a whole stand dedicated to recruiting, and another for advertising holidays) or offering instructor training. I think I counted half a dozen or more stalls touting 'learn to be a qualified ski instructor' courses. |
They were there last year as well but I seem to remember they were a bit more evenly spread round the show.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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And did anyone else spot this?
(Stupid autorotate)
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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But probably more innovation in that marketing ruse than from that stand selling certain 'safety' equipment!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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So, while I was signing up for freebies at HH, I let the kids off the leash and they went trying to raid stuffed voles off of the stand next door, although they referred to them (loudly) as Cyril the snowboarding Squirrel.
Did anyone else notice that you could barely see the Snivel branding for other people hawking stuff off their stand. When I was trying to retrieve the kids a bloke pounced on me any tried to persuade me of the benefits of gloves you can zip in half so you can finger your chosen fondleslab and get snow in them. And someone was knocking off The Great Bear as a piste map thingy...
And sadly the kids didn't manage to un-cabletie Vince or Cyril or whoever, and mean old daddy wouldn't hand over a tenner for one either.
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| feef wrote: |
And did anyone else spot this?
(Stupid autorotate) |
Stupid spelling more like.
"Don't loose your phone ... " Shocking!
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You know it makes sense.
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Richard_Sideways, It did have a bit of market stall look to it didn't it?
Last edited by You know it makes sense. on Mon 4-11-13 15:36; edited 1 time in total
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I went on a free ticket. I expected it to be 'ok' but it was really rubbish! Not even good value for a free ticket! Might have been OK if I had kids with me as they coudld have gone on the ice skating, slide and scooter area - but for adults it was poor. Really poor. I don't get it, basically you pay to have people sell things to you?
I was in the market for some new snowboard boots but the stalls with boots were small and crowded which put me off.
Top things were the toffee vodka and the bobble hats with different coloured bobbles. Worst thing was the cheese smell, and the absolute lack of things to looks at or do.
Addition of a big screen and previewing clips of new ski/snowboard movies would be good.
Gadet show for a fiver was reasonably good. Not really any cutting edge gadgets - more consumer stuff for Christmas but the fiver was worth it for a go on the electric bikes alone.
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Poster: A snowHead
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kat.ryb, Yep the kids did enjoy it more than me, mostly as I've said down to the youngest putting on the small, blonde and cute routine to come away with an impressive haul of freebies and her sister finding her dream bobble hat!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Richard_Sideways wrote: |
Did anyone else notice that you could barely see the Snivel branding for other people hawking stuff off their stand. |
Think I walked past twice and would have struggled to tell it wasn't just some uber aggressive girl hawking her competition for Huckster's lodge* and some sadsack flogging ski themed Tube maps.
*May have been a feature of the corner junction they were on but she seemed the most aggressive of the show.
Re the instructor courses - I realise that's where the only real money in skiing seems to be these days but surely the market must reach saturation at some point. Or are mummy and daddy just so keen that the fledglings gap years won't be spent developing an opium habit in SE Asia or as mules for the Cali cartel that they'll keep the gravy train rolling?*
* extreme characterisation for comic effect, no criticism intended of anyone who self-funded their own course.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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kat.ryb, I went last year and had a good day as we had the kids with us so they had a go on most things and we filled the day and had a good family day out. I think it would have been different if we had not had the kids with us. Even so the venue felt a bit too big for what was there and there were too few people there so there was a lack of atmosphere in part.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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we too had freebies, and tend to go every year, this was the smallest show by far. The kids had a great time, with ice skating, scooters, curling (wtf?) chocolate fountain, the climbing wall on the 'swiss' stand, cuddling wolves (sorry huskies) and robbing stands of as much mechandise and sweets as possible (wednesday is always a good day to go) what struck me the most was Sports Direct foray into the market, I know they bought Ski wesr 4 less but was surprised to see the amount of cheap kit they had, are they the new TK Maxx???? Sand R used to have a huge stand, waste of space this year we didnt even go on it, next to no race kit at all, tea club promising so much pmsl, saw the Snivel stand and mr cambridge find yourself in the snow, but overall its hard to find anywhere else that brings so much together under one roof, it needs more entertainement, wheres the fashion show (that was my wife asking that though to be honest there were some nice youn ladies in past years strutting their stuff) and no displays??????? Aimee Fuller was very pleasant ot the kids, Chemmy had her fixed peroxides on show, and bless Graham Bell he always looks sooooo stressed  overall we had a good day and it kept the kids quiet for a bit.........
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Highlight for me? Seeing the actor who plays Mr Lister, the market inspector in EastEnders, on Sunday afternoon. Almost worth the price of admission (well it would have been if I hadn't had a free pass!)
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Is his first name 'Shopping' or 'ToDo' ?
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I was there 'working' for the first couple of days but on Friday the kids came and had a ball. They tried snowboarding, went ice-skating, luging, got a thousand stickers, a baseball cap from Verbier, headband from Liftopia and various other freebies. It's a brilliant half term day out for kids. NB our total spend on equipment/holidays was £15.99
re Sports Direct - my thoughts here: http://www.skipedia.co.uk/2013/11/sports-direct-snowsports-retail/
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| iainm wrote: |
I was there 'working' for the first couple of days but on Friday the kids came and had a ball. They tried snowboarding, went ice-skating, luging, got a thousand stickers, a baseball cap from Verbier, headband from Liftopia and various other freebies. It's a brilliant half term day out for kids. NB our total spend on equipment/holidays was £15.99
re Sports Direct - my thoughts here: http://www.skipedia.co.uk/2013/11/sports-direct-snowsports-retail/ |
QR codes? how quaint 
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The London show is only 4 days next year apparently. That alone will kill off a certain amount of retail because of the time and energy for build up / break down would be the same but 20% less selling time. So London has gone from 10 days, to 5, to 4. Hmmm... draw that on a graph and see where it goes.
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FAQ
