PestEx 2009: A view from the street

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We asked our new to the industry yet recently qualified pest controller, Russell Goodbourn, for his impressions of his first PestEx event

The ExCeL building is big, I mean it’s HUGE, but why the mickey mouse direction signs. I hope the Olympics has better signage, or the athletes may find themselves performing to an empty stadium, the spectators either lost or stuck in traffic, probably both. This is a venue to shout about, a brilliant building the size of a small village, but signage like a village fete!?

Having visited PestTech as my very first taste of pest control on display, time has passed and might I be so bold as to say that some experience has been gained. I hope this time that the people I spoke to on the stands were not all thinking, who’s this idiot who’s walked in off the street!

The show was an optical illusion, as it appeared smaller than PestTech, but was in fact larger. I think it was because it was in such a huge building and all in one room.

I attended both days, as it is difficult to get to that many stands in one and talk in any depth. I started looking at the show from an anthropological perspective, as we are all animals looking to attract, in this case business contacts and

  

Helen & RussellHelen Riby associate editor for Pest with contributor Russell Goodbourn

I saw stands (no names) where reps sat with glum faces and were wondering perhaps why no one was stopping to engage. Speaking as a punter and a bait taker, the best attractant to lure me in (apart from the obvious) is someone SMILING!

I think the show is a really good way of displaying new products and keeping people up to date with industry developments. The seminars that I visited were very informative and generally well attended. However the ticket system needs some attention and I did rapidly exit the Increasing profits without cutting corners one as it seemed to be just a straight sales pitch for Ford vans. 

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