Professional Beauty has followed a 50 per cent leap in visitor numbers last year with another attendee rise at Excel London this month.
 
This year’s 34,103 visitors compares with 33,500 in 2011, reported six months after Professional Beauty’s former owner Mark Moloney bought back the exhibition and related magazines from Emap Connect. The show will now be ABC audited.
 
Moloney told EN the number of students was cut from about 9,000 last year to 4,000, further improving visitor quality at the London show. Among attendees were representatives for Business Innovation and Skills Minister Vince Cable, who met with Moloney to discuss ways the government can work with the show to encourage trend-bucking growth in the beauty sector.
 
Professional Beauty ran from 4 to 5 March and was supported by 370 exhibitors. Major content highlights included the World Spa Awards and Ultimate Spa Experience, which Moloney claimed was the only working wet spa in any European exhibition and attracted 200 local and foreign spa owners.
 
The show also featured a new Aesthetic Medicine expo and conference, which attracted 500 doctors plus qualified medical staff and salon owners. More broadly, Moloney said his team proactively worked with exhibitors to invite more of their customers along and claimed to be more firmly entrenched in the beauty trade 18 months buying back the show brand.
 
“It’s nice to have done our second London show and reported a slight increase in visitors, including a significant increase in buyers, in recessionary times,” he continued. “The business done at the show was phenomenal and the show will grow again.”
 
Following the debut of a small international section this year, Moloney hoped to find growth next year through more international exhibitor pavilions.
 
The next edition of Professional Beauty will be held in Cape Town, South Africa from 18 to 19 March.
 
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