London snow show

A snowHead

Anyone else heading to the Excel this weekend to the Snow Show? Going up today with the Jnr to have a bit of a mooch.

A snowHead

If I go it will be first thing tomorrow.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

We’re turning up around midday.

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Already there Eh oh!

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

My god, £20 for burger chips and coke Shocked

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How is it all? Missing the Birmingham show Blush

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Yeah food isn't cheap. Shows ok. Feels a bit bigger than last year. Just sitting down to watch gigi ruf

After all it is free

just got back after spending a couple of hours there, probably an hour too many, but i was potentially meeting up with a mate in the excel centre for a couple of beers but he could not make it in end, so abandoned ship.

must admit, it was very uninspiring, but maybe as i am not going away this season as i had no possible purchases to make was one of the reasons for me, though seeing aimee fuller as she walked past me brightened the day for me Very Happy

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main reason for going was to snag free lift passes from the snow centre, but they have changed their policy from last few years, where they just attach a load of passes to a brochure, now you have to spin a wheel for a chance to win a pass.

I did quite fancy a pint but nixxed that when I saw it was peach

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@Richard_Sideways, there was another beer shop in the middle of the area, but i could not see if it was the same hipster muck, so did not bother!!

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Bit late to the party but we're just heading home from there now, having been there pretty much all day, saw a couple of the talks (Aimee, Gigi, black diamond and the chap after on avo safety) snagged a couple of bargains, had a couple of beers and quite a lot of free shots of various liqueurs, waited bloody ages for an expensive pot of potato with a pathetic amount of cheese. All in all was an ok day out seeing as we got the tickets for free, not sure why anyone would pay to get in though!

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Rolled up mid-morning with ticket from Erna Low, who weren't even there. Says it all, really. With a couple of talks, managed to stretch it out to a couple of hours, but very little of interest wandering round the stalls. Doubt I'll bother next year, if it takes place.

We went yesterday, also on free tickets. It was our first time and I quite enjoyed it. But that might be because I went in with the mindset that I was the product, not the customer. When I realised how many tickets they were giving away it kinda dawned on me that the customers were the exhibitors, and what they were paying for was a stream of somewhat pre-qualified prospects to walk past them for a couple of days. So I went in with the mindset of 'all these people have paid to advertise to me and there's no point being grumpy about it' and just let it wash over me. I didn't actually buy anything, but I suspect the exhibitors still got something out of it in terms of awareness, brand-building, etc. A few things I learned/noticed:

* The overwhelming spend was from travel operators, resorts and tourist bodies. From a resorts perspective, it was - unsurprisingly - the ones that are not most Brits' first choices who wanted to make themselves visible. eg the huge France stand was touting eg the Maurienne Valley and Serre Chevalier rather than the obvious Tarentaise mega-resorts
* Japan Airlines is offering ski package holidays (keen to emphasise the luggage allowance). Kinda obvious but hadn't occurred to me until now... whenever I'd thought about skiing in Japan I'd ended up going down a 'construct it yourself' rabbit hole
* The indoor infinite carpet thing in Chiswick (Ski Easy?) now has a second machine
* Carv had a big stand. I didn't speak to anybody but did look at one of the new devices. I noticed that they're now labelled 'L' and 'R', which I guess makes sense since they don't have a foot sensor to tell them which boot they're attached to.
* Maybe I'm just not the demographic but there were so many small new brands selling (presumably) fashionable skiwear. I'm perfectly happy with something cheap and practical from places like dare2be so these stands did nothing for me.

So yeah, I probably won't go away. But it was an interesting way to spend a couple of hours, and I learned a few things.

You know it makes sense.

We enjoyed the day. It was interesting talking to smaller companies, Douk may have a couple of new customers. The peach beer was a good, refreshing tropical IPA.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

How it has all changed from when it was at Earls Court and Olympia in the 80s and 90s. Had some great (but hard work) times working on the Snow & Rock stands at London, Birminham, and even one at the Sheffield slope when Eddie the legend Eagle jumped over a load of busses.
Excel is a pig to get to for most which puts people off for starters.

A snowHead

Most interesting bit was all the odd people coming in and out the Musicals convention next door dressed as their favourite characters , quite unusual to see Fiona from Shrek talking to the Phantom of the Opera Q ing up for a burger on the concourse

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I quite enjoyed it. I spent about 3 hours mocking around and about £250 on clothing with Black Diamond. I also had a good chat with some of the smaller stall holders. However, I really couldn't face paying £12 for a burger, so we took a short tube ride to Kipferl in Camden Passage for some proper food and drink.

All in all for not a bad day.

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I've wanted to head along to one of these for a few years now but it's a long day trip from up here. Always seems slightly weird that there's nothing like this show-wise north of the border, but I guess there just aren't the punters to make it worthwhile. One day I'll make the effort to come down for it, or see if I can get a work trip to align... wink

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Just back from the show. It’s a shadow of what is used to be in the Earlscourt heyday. I understand the show rights have been bought by another company and the hope is that the venue moves and stalls are cheaper.

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Spent a couple of hours at it this morning. Its pretty easy to get to from where we are, certainly better than Birmingham but not as an attractive venue as Battersea (never went to the Earls Court or Olympia events).

Had a couple of interesting chats including to CEM, a touring ski guiding outfit and a really helpful word with Interski about Pila & Aosta, where we are going at Christmas. Looked at the boa system on K2 boots and salivated over the Stockli range on the Ski Exchange stand. Had a look at Carv V2, much better than the footbed device. Also managed to meet @iainm, @Mike Pow, and another SH called Chris who's SH name now escapes me (sorry!)

Worth going just all for that. Other than that it was the usual suspects there.

I didnt buy anything but did get a Fallline subscription that threw in a free pair of Sungod googles.

It was interesting that four of the major Scottish ski areas have banded together to jointly market themselves. But there was the absence of one notable Scottish ski area in that joint effort , guess which one!

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Not a massive fan of the modular windowless boxes that make up Excel, but anyhoo... we came away with a fistful of free lift passes for Hemel, which are just what we needed for a couple of our group (in training) ahead of the season. More than paid for the commute.

Nice to see Ski Exchange there, had a really good fitting with them last year...

Otherwise. Meh. Had a bit of fun with the shooting range though.

After all it is free

We enjoyed our visit on Saturday and it has certainly improved a lot from the dire effort at Birmingham a few years ago. Lots of people were happy to chat without too much hard sell and we got some really good tips and ideas for future trips this season and next to places I may not have otherwise considered. The talks I listened to for a bit seemed interesting enough and there were lots more freebies and gizzits handed out this year. And I bought a very reduced jacket from Black Diamond, ex-demo kit was amazingly cheap. Overall it felt like there was a bit of a buzz to it and
we had a fun day out with the free tickets we got.

Lots of people on here can’t seem to get past the ‘it’s not how it used to be in the 80’s’ nonsense. But then neither are my knees; Eh oh!

maybe just enjoy it for what it is (or not) rather than grumble about what it used to be?

Went along on Saturday courtesy of a free ticket; it was busy and there definitely seemed more exhibitors there than last time (and definitely fewer charity stalls, a good thing). Had an interesting chat with Ski Weekends and the very pleasant couple who do the Sauze Online snow reports. Spoke to Ski Inspired, OTP Swiss Holidays and Solutions 4 Feet. Liked the look of the new Rossignol Vizion boot range, too. Was looking, casually, for some new ski trousers but there wasn't much on offer as the show still lacks some of the big retailers. They should bring back the fashion show as well ( Very Happy

). I thought the on-stage presentations I saw were lacklustre apart from Ski Flight Free with Iain Martin. Had a lager (not the peach stuff), collected a few brochures and went home reasonably content.

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I live 15 minutes away and for me it was worth going for an hour or so but for the most part it was pretty limited. Wondered around the mostly sparse stalls (the stalls that needed more space didn't have it), spotted @CEM (looked busy) saw @iainm give his talk which was interesting and inspiring, then headed off pretty sharpish due to the grease haze that was enveloping the back half of the room - pretty grim.

One thing that could have been really interesting is a proper track for the XC stand (there was plenty of space for a loop at the perimeter of the room)- there looked to be a lot of people interested but it was basically a bottleneck.

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Jnr had a go on the indoor ski slope when we got there on Saturday and almost collected his first injury of the season - someone on the ski side of it collapsed back in the transition bit from slope to flat at the bottom and speared off to the right and ran into Jnr and they ended up in a pile. Then proceeded to try to right himself by rolling over and of course with the skis still on, scythed into the boy - fortunately the ski connected with the boot and board and not Jnrs shin or that would have been colourful and would have required them firing up the Karcher jetwasher again and a trip to the medic.

Bumped into one of the guys from K2 who I bought my Special Effects from at the Oktobertest a few years back, had a chat about their new lines and some boots which I would have tried on if they'd had the right size at the show. The S4F stand looked VERY busy and CEM holding court with his usual crop of boot-perverts; I imagine they could consume any size stand space that the could get. Did my usual stroll past the SCGB stand a few times, they were always seemingly deep in conversation with themselves, so little change there. Did speak to Snowsports England and Hemel about what they offer for students studying snowsports as part of GCSE PE (both kids want to do this as part of their GCSE) and have contact details from both to follow up on.

Photo ops with Aimee Fuller and Gigi Ruf, STILL not managed to get a pic with Jenny Jones despite bumping into her twice at the show.

Usual swag haul, free hats, lanyards, pens, etc, and Jnr was on a mission to hoover up as many stickers and sweets from stands... and apparently ESF does Sushi now. Did have a good chat with the guy over at Butta waxes about the pros and cons of a thin scraper over a wide scraper for boards and got given a free one of each for my trouble, plus the traditional passes to Mt.Hemel.

For what is a free show, its alright; and was better than last year. Because I had Jnr in tow I didn't goto as many talks and presentations as I did previously, so can't really comment on that (Apologies to @Iainm. I did ask the boy if he had enjoyed it (tbh I thought he'd have been bored quite quickly but we stayed from just after opening through till about 4.30) but he said it was good - enjoyed being on a snowboard again albeit briefly, the various competitions and games, and the shooting at the biathlon - he was eyeing up the jib park but we couldn't see how to get into do it.

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I used to love going to these shows when I lived in London and despite living close to the Alps now in Switzerland I actually miss the show as a means of getting excited for the new season and seeing lots of exhibitors/resorts in the same place as I don't think there's really an equivalent here that I've seen advertised.

I do travel back to London quite frequently but unfortunately they never seem to quite coincide

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@Dave of the Marmottes, I knew I should've worn the tweeds...

A snowHead

A snowHead

We went on the Sunday and it was OK but nothing special for us as a family with 2 11yr olds. The main thing for me was it lacked the atmosphere of previous shows, didn't really like the location of excel myself, all the other random exhibitions made the snow show just feel like any other one, much preferred it in the earlier days or even more recently at Battersea where it felt like its own show and had more entertainment - slopes with people doing tricks etc.

Was frustrated to find the Dave Ryding talk was so late on, we were getting a bit bored by just after lunch time so there was no way we would have been able to keep the kids entertained for another couple of hours. Would have thought having it prime time would have been better (same for the quiz on the Saturday). I know catering etc at these sort of events is always bad but when the prices are more than you find when your on the slopes you know its not quite right.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

hi @ratechaser,

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Well you could sprinkle the QRCode with some spare email addresses and get extras, or you could queue up and spin the wheel again - when we queued up they were rigging the wheel anyway and everyone was getting a pass, and not checking details. Or you can always just ask like I've done before, I've never been refused an extra for the kids. Previous years I've not been asked for the codes either when you book ifg you phone them up and say you have a free hour from the snow show - and they will give you an additional hour of slopetime at a hefty discount for every free hour ticket too if you phone them up to book.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@terrygasson, I span the wheel, got a pass, mentioned in prior years I got enough for the whole family, was asked how many that was, didn’t take the wee wee and got how many I hoped for.

You don’t ask, you don’t get.

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@ster, i also mentioned the previous years as well, but the bloke on the wheel just told me that the system had changed this year, maybe i was just unlucky with who was on the wheel at the time.

oh well, if i go next year i will try and be a bit more pushy, or have several spare email accounts to hand (i only have 1 personal and 1 work email at the mo) to keep on entering

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@terrygasson, yup probably I got the right person at the right time. But even one pass is better than a kick in the teeth. Equally you could input any old tosh as long as it looked like an email address I doubt their system cares or checks and neither do the wheel guardians.

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