The North East Baby Road Show

I thoroughly enjoyed The North East Baby, Toddler and Maternity Road Show. Despite the relatively low attendance it was a great opportunity to show people what Global Maternity has to offer and feel part of the thriving north east business community. It's fair to say I was absolutely shattered when I finally arrived home at about 7pm [via the supermarket for my bottle of cheap plonk! I didn't make that much profit!] By 10pm my eyes had glazed over - perhaps one too many glasses!

It's a new show for the north east and it was great to see some familiar faces, and lots of new ones! There was a welcome abundance of Newcastle Business Mums, either exhibiting or visiting including Helen from Breastvest, Sarah from Kids Deserve the Best, Andrea from Munchie and Millie, Ruth from loveitloveitloveit, and Debbie from Pushy Mothers. I also enjoyed meeting @HelenW71 and she looked radiant whizzing around on the electric buggy!

And yes, Ruth's banner was stupendous. Being a lazy so and so I got mine printed for £40. No class you see!

Chatting to other exhibitors during the day, there were mixed messages about how well organised people thought it was. Feelings ranged from 'where are all the people?', 'where is my table' to 'I paid for an electric socket but didn't get one'. How well did you all think it was organised?

It's fair to say I thought there were a couple of minor hiccups. My stand number changed at the last minute so I had to use the paper and blue tac technique to cover up the typo's on things that I had got printed for the day! The tannoy system wasn't working downstairs, which made getting people upstairs for the fashion shows and demonstrations a bit of a struggle. My daughter Bethany and my friend Claire were fantastic as they ran downstairs shortly before the Global Maternity fashion show at 1pm and madly thrust leaflets into any pregnant ladies hands, asking them to make their way upstairs for the show! I don't know what I would have done without Bethany and Claire. They were brilliant.

Customers also told me that they didn't get a programme and therefore didn't know who was exhibiting, or that there were stands, demonstrations and fashion shows upstairs? Not sure what happened there but I have a feeling that the programmes were put into goody bags that were given to the children as they came in. So, they wouldn't have been found until the bags were unpacked at home!

Upstairs, people also started to pack up their stands at about 4.15pm [ish]. Claire and I were the 'last women standing' so to speak! Did any of you stick around for the excitement of the fire alarm going off? We had to go and stand outside for 20 minutes while they sorted it out!

I wonder what next year will have in store?