Meininger’s: After two years of Lockdown, what is the 2022 London Wine Fair going to look like?
Tovey: We had so much prepared for our 40th anniversary edition, set for May 2020, which sadly had to be cancelled just eight weeks before the doors were due to open. There will be some revival of those plans, including presentations from our truly comprehensive ‘Wine Buyers Awards’ programme that LWF launched just before the pandemic.
And we are delighted to be continuing relationships with all the leading associations and wine media who help to shape LWF’s timetable of sessions; from the UK Wine & Spirit Trade Association, to the Institute of Masters Wine, and across many leading drinks publications. We had also organised the launch of a dedicated No & Low Zone, which I’m happy to say can now go ahead.
We continue with the Wines Unearthed section for producers looking for UK distribution, Drinks Britannia for all UK-made drinks products, including our ever-growing collective of British Wine producers which will be showcasing their wines with the generic Wine GB organisation.
Our ever-popular Esoterica section for specialist importers will bustle again in 2022, too.
Meininger’s: How big will the event be?
Tovey: We have the Grand Hall and Gallery at Olympia as per previous years, which looks set to be completely filled, despite us only having had 40% of the time sell the space. And, if you take the digital platform into account – with two days of content, meetings and stands –it’s considerably bigger
Meininger’s: Who are your main exhibitors? Producers? Distributors/importers/agents? Generics?
Tovey: Happily far too many to namecheck all, but we are thrilled to welcome back large -cale exhibitors from previous years such as Hatch Mansfield, who have some exciting additional agencies to showcase this year. Enotria and Coe who will manage an incredible timetable of 12 masterclasses from their own large stand. ABS are also re-joining.
We have lots of international pavilions coming back. The French Pavilion will be 50% bigger than previous years , Cotes du Rhone have their own large stand and Burgundy & Chablis are separately bringing over 40 producers and some food stalls for a marketplace-style pop-up
Wine GB are taking a large area in Drinks Britannia and happily the popular Nyetimber bus will be returning in a beautiful garden-style space.
Many of our international pavilions such as Georgia and Greece are going to be considerably bigger than previous years,. In fact we are planning a dedicated press release in mid-April to reveal some fresh new territories and countries joining us. I’m happy to share already that ProChile will have a collective of producers for the first time in many years and Galicia are planning a beautiful all-new stand. Much more to come in the next couple of weeks.
Meininger’s: And who are the visitors? Do you have a breakdown of on, and off trade?
Tovey: The big picture breakdown is 40% on-trade, 25% off-trade, 11% importer/distributor, 7% media. Interestingly this sector breakdown didn’t significantly change for the fully digital event last year, however the average age of the visitor was lower with about 40% of the digital visitors under 35. And, for the first time ever there were more female visitors at 51%.
Meininger’s: Historically, when it was the London International Wine Trade Fair, the event attracted a lot of visitors from outside the UK. What proportion would you expect today?
Tovey: The in-person event has had a largely UK visitor base for many years. Given the new digital aspect we anticipate this will broaden our international visitor base considerably. We already saw an increase to 15% international visitors in the fully digital event last year, so we are working to continue this upward trend.
Meininger’s: UK buyers do go to ProWein, Wine Paris/Vinexpo and Vinitaly. What will they find at the London even that they won’t get at those events?
Tovey: Some UK buyers do indeed travel overseas, but not to any single international event in the numbers that they attend LWF. It is practical for UK buyers to attend a UK-based exhibition, on so many levels. Equally it is not an either / or situation. Many will choose to attend more than one large-scale exhibition in a single year, rendering date clashes highly undesirable as we recently learned. In terms of how they benefit from LWF, I would say that LWF’s timetable of Industry Briefings, tastings, masterclasses and Discovery Zone talks and panel sessions is second to none. We work with amazing partners to put together content that not only helps shape the industry we work in, but future-proofs it, too. At the last in-person event we hosted over 80 sessions. It has been known for us to get in excess of 600 applications for a single session.
The UK industry appetite for information, collaboration and education is enormous. Over the last few years our exhibitors have really delighted us in how they drive strong content from their stands too. It’s no longer a case of turning up and pouring the samples. So many of them invest huge amounts of time and energy in producing imaginative on-stand content with great presenters and fabulous producers. There is an undeniable energy and buzz surrounding the return of LWF this year and I look forward to seeing that translate into the visitor numbers and the adoption of the digital aspects.
Meininger’s: And why should an overseas visitor attend?
Tovey: Not only is London an incredible destination in and of itself, international visitors to LWF can benefit in so many ways. We have so much content that is curated by our team and partners that is entirely unique to our event. As we know, the UK is an incredibly important market for wine on the global stage and still strongly in second place in terms of imports. It seems logical to me that international visitors would gain vital insight and new customers by attending the UK’s biggest wine trade exhibition. London is also considered to be a vital springboard for new launches, given the UK’s early adoption of new styles, products and concepts. This also makes for great discoveries at LWF.
Meininger’s: What is happening online?
Tovey: The pandemic has been the catalyst for an incredibly slick, digital aspect of LWF. We will now have two days of fully digital content (20-21st June) following on the back of three days onsite at Olympia in June (7-9th June). Visitors can buy a ticket to the in-person event that will include full access to the digital platform. Or they can buy a ‘digital only’ ticket. It’s entirely flexible for exhibitors in that they can exhibit within both events or make a choice between in-person, or digital. We are fully aware that many countries are not yet fully released from Coronavirus restrictions, and that many individuals may indeed continue to abstain from in-person events until the virus is better controlled. So we wanted to keep options open for all involved.
In May 2021, when the in-person event was thwarted by the pandemic for a second year, we quickly pivoted to a fully digital exhibition. We worked with Bottlebooks who already supplied LWF’s digital exhibitor list in previous years. Happily this grew to an impressive size in a very small window of time, with over 200 exhibitors, over 3,000 visitors and more than 25,000 individual miniature samples dispatched direct to our visitor’s homes. The learnings we made about the efficiencies of digital events were staggering and the opportunities that can be created are exciting.
We have brought the exhibitor and visitor matching aspect of the 2021 digital event into our 2022 event, managed by a powerful algorithm. We will also host slick 1-2-1 video meetings within the platform and stream masterclasses and panel sessions. This broadens both our potential visitor base and the opportunities of our exhibitors. At least 60% of the streaming content for the digital event will be entirely exclusive to digital.
Meininger’s: What conference events are being organised?
Tovey: We have our Road Map to Export conference for producers looking to crack the UK market, through to presentations on What Makes a Great Wine Buyer?, Drinks Retailing will also host ‘The Future of Drinks Retailing’. With over 80 sessions every visitor will find multiple relevant, valuable and high quality sessions to engage with.
Meininger’s: Wine Paris/Vinexpo had sessions looking at the impact of Brexit and supply chain issues on the UK market. Are you offering that kind of local insight?
Tovey: Yes, we will have a dedicated key note session from Miles Beale, head of the WSTA to provide valuable insight as to where we are in terms of import and export. Since the 2016 referendum we have provided support and information to our exhibitors and visitors on this subject and the talks and panel sessions at LWF are always standing room only. This year we are also planning a session on what the wine supply chain looks like in 2022. From vineyard to glass, with a premium producer, their importer, a large scale UK distributor, a key retailer and an on-trade multiple all joining the talk to share their experiences of how the wine journey has altered over the last few years, pinch points and how to move forward.
Meininger’s: How do spirits, beers and other drinks fit into the event?
Tovey: Our exhibitors are encouraged to showcase non-wine drinks from their portfolios, alongside their wines. Over half of our visitors have spirit, beer and soft drink buying power. Equally the Drinks Britannia section is open to all UK drinks products.
Meininger’s: What kind of focus is there on organic, sustainable, natural wines?
Tovey: We know this content is really important for attracting the attention of our visitors, so we encourage all of our exhibitors to identify their wines as such on our highly intelligent, digital exhibitor list. This way these wines can be filtered within the system to create multi-stand tasting trails of specific styles. Visitors can even create their own personalised catalogue of wines they plan to taste, filtered by credentials such as organic/biodynamic amongst others. To this they can add their own scores and notes that can all be downloaded for use after the event. We have a dedicated section in our Wines Unearthed section for certified organic producers who are new to the UK market too.
