At the Gold, Silver & Watch –fair a very positive feeling was apparant. 52 exhibitors from different countries were participating. Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania and Great Britain were represented by several companies. The venue close to the Vantaa Helsinki airport is convenient for visitors from abroad, and also for Finnish visitors from other towns than the capital.
The 2-day fair was clearly more popular to be visited on Saturday, but the informative short speaches on Sunday were also popular. Hundreds of shop owners, buyers and other interested visited the fair, and more than 200 companies were represented. The visitors were mainly interested in checking out new trends, brands, learning to know the peope behind the companies, but of course also business was made. Maybe orders weren’t streaming like in the ”good old days”, but the exhibitors didn’t have to leave emptyhanded.
The short speaches held on Sunday was seen as a new fresh input. Topics discussed were social media, lab-grown diamonds, security of the jewellers and some stories about wellknown brands in the business. The more unofficial part of the weekend was held as a cocktail party on Saturday evening. Music, food and drinks made the evening a nice gettogether and the feeling was closer to a family reunion than an official business party. Even though the jewellery shops are having a rough time overall, they were very satisifed with the outcome of the fair. A lot of new products were introduced, as well as totally new companies presenting new products that could be attractive for the jewellery shops. The customers were also pleased with the extra moneyworth offers, Christmas campaigns and custom made packages that were offered. Best of all was still to meet all the people face to face, and getting to know each other better. Nowadays the business is more often made only by email and you have no idea of how your contact person looks like.
