Spring Fair, the UK's most diverse, vibrant, and exciting wholesale marketplace for home, gift, and fashion, taking place from 6^th – 9^th February 2022 at NEC Birmingham, has announced the Inspiring Retail Stage content programme which delivers a schedule packed full of incredible speakers from John Lewis, Sedex and Mintel, founder of Green & Blacks Jo Fairley, TV personalities Billie Faiers and Paul Moneypenny, as well as inspiring and informative insights, industry awards, and the essential trends for 2022 and beyond. View the latest programme at www.springfair.com/seminars and download the official Spring Fair App to add sessions to your calendar.

Created as a platform to champion retail, the Inspiring Retail Stage’s full schedule of live content will cover a dedicated theme relating to this season’s Empowering Change manifesto on each day of the show, kicking off with ‘The trends that will shape consumer behaviour in 2022’ on Sunday 6^th February.

Highlights include the opening session at 11.30am with Simon Moriarty, Head of Trends at Mintel.  From technology that predicts the success of potential romances to brands tackling COVID-19 ‘survivor’s guilt’ and eco-anxiety, Simon discusses ‘The trends that will shape consumer behaviour in 2022’ talking through the big changes that will impact the world in which we all live and work within.

Join Karl McKeever, Founder of FUTURVIEW at 1pm for ‘Business Unusual’, as he shares his experience on how you can thrive in an era of unparalleled change, help you discover how to develop a culture of curiosity to keep you in front of latest trends, and explore how to spot opportunities ahead of the curve for early advantage.

Following the highly successful launch of his own interiors collection at Autumn Fair last September, interior designer Paul Moneypenny returns to the Inspiring Retail Stage at 2pm for a workshop session on ‘How to use bold design in your store to make impact’, including tips for building impactful window displays, and the positive impact of colour and pattern on people.

 

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At 3pm, the stage welcomes the inspirational team from Yarnton Home and Garden Centre for ‘Retail View: Transforming retail with the community in mind’. This session explores how Yarton turned their business around by building closer links with the community, translating their values into the store, and made Twiggy a bit of an icon! Join Marketing and Buying Manager, Bryony Fletcher and Visual Merchandising Manager Celia Leeson Cox, as they talk about the up and downs of their business transformation that took them from a garden centre into an entirely new home and garden concept store.

Day one closes with a celebration of UK retail and the businesses that are making a difference. In partnership with Modern Retail, Spring Fair host the Good Retail Awards for the third year, recognising the good practices in UK retail and sharing the successes in all areas of retail. From High Streets who are supporting their local businesses, to businesses that are transforming their operations to put sustainability at the core, to businesses the ooze creativity, the winners will be announced from 5pm.

Monday is all about Trends, Sustainability and Innovation in Retail, with retailers and global organisations sharing the highs and lows of their journeys. Kicking off at 10.30am, Kate Usher, Senior Trend Consultant, at Trend Bible offers vital insights into 2023 Home & Lifestyle Trends to help inform your buying season as she uncovers consumer behaviours and lifestyle choices set to underpin product and design trends for the home in 2023.

At 11.30am, Samual Cliff, Member Director at SEDEX delves deep into ‘How do you know who you are doing business with?’ Sustainability isn’t just all about recycling and material management. The pandemic has shown that consumers care deeply about the people in the supply chain as much as the materials those products are made out of. Join Samual as he runs through some simple things to look for when you start to do business with a new supplier, and how to ensure you know who you are doing business with is exactly who you think you are doing business with.

Founder of Green & Blacks, Jo Fairley, follows at 12.30pm with ‘Living your values is just the way you do business’. Jo is one of the UK’s leading female entrepreneurs whose businesses and brands have been successful because their values are embedded into their operational DNA. During this session, Jo will talk about her experience of founding a business during a recession, the importance of being able to change direction and to be creative, and importantly, of staying true to her core values that every business should do business in a way that shows they care about their people, the planet as well as the bottom line.

At 2pm, the stage welcomes TV personality, Billie Faiers for ‘Interior Design the Billie Faiers way’. Best known for her TV show The Family Diaries, she is now following her passion for interiors, launching her own home & lifestyle brand, with Spring Fair exhibitor Hunter Price International. Billie will be talking about her own inspirations, how she has worked to develop her ranges, and her longer term ambitions.

 

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Ahead of her debut at Spring Fair, Billie explained: “It’s a dream to be able to launch my very own brand at the biggest retail trade event in the country, Spring Fair. I can’t wait for everyone to see all the hard work come alive and talk about this really exciting new chapter of my life.”

The Greatest Christmas Awards takes place at 5pm, celebrating all that’s great about garden centres at Christmas. The GTN’s Greatest Christmas Awards brings the industry together to celebrate great work over the festive season. Hosted by GTN’s Trevor Pfeiffer, and a panel of esteemed judges, this is the perfect way to reflect on a unique year for retail.

The theme for Tuesday 8^th is Changing Mindsets – being comfortable with the unknown in order to thrive - and is packed full of insight into how to change your own mindsets in order to thrive, how you can build that culture within your business and learn from other business leaders as they share how they have navigated unprecedented change in order to grow. Each session is insightful and practical and geared towards helping give retailers the tools to succeed in an ever-changing world.

Following an insightful trend presentation from Kate Usher at TrendBible at 10.30am on the key Gifting trends impacting consumers and key opportunities which will elevate your celebration, occasion and gift ranges to new levels, join Charley Crocker from The Pop Up Agents at midday for ‘The Power of Pop-Ups’ he talks through the local authority-led Pop Up scheme Pop-Up Horsham that acted as a showcase for local businesses and products, and explains how this can be a valuable tool for local authorities and retailers alike. In this panel discussion, Charley is also joined by three retailers who talk through how this project has acted as a launchpad for their business, and how they were able to use this program to conduct market research, experience customer interaction, and refine their brand.

At 1pm, Anna Berry, founder of Retail100 consulting and former head of gift, cook and dine at John Lewis, shares what she learnt building high performing teams at John Lewis, and shares her insight into how you can get the most out of your team.

Don’t miss the ‘Dare To Change’ session at 2pm with Alan O’Neill, managing director of Kara and the man who has helped Selfridges, Fenwick, Primark and Harrods thrive. Before Covid-19, the world was changing at an exponential rate. Along came Covid-19 to speed it up even more. Retail in particular has experienced dramatic changes as a result, as online continues to perform at the expense of bricks and mortar. But the so-called retail apocalypse is fake news, according to Alan O’Neill. “Physical retail is not dying, bad retailing is.” In this session, Alan O’Neill will share his experiences of supporting iconic brands like Ann Summers, Fenwick, Harrod’s, Primark and Selfridges to grow their physical store sales. You will leave this session equipped with practical ideas and tactics to help you embrace change, after all “It’s about coping with change through the lens of a customer-centred culture.”

On the final day, Spring Fair collaborates with its wellbeing and charity partner The Retail Trust to deliver a meaningful and useful business workshop at 11am ‘Supporting your people in order to thrive’ to help guide us towards better business. Andrea Woodside, Wellbeing Consultant at Retail Trust will explore the ways in which retail colleagues should be supported and how to practically do that.

During ‘A Buyer’s Life’ at 12pm, discover the top tips on what both buyers and suppliers need for success with Sara Allbright, Founder of Retail100 consulting and former head of gift buying at John Lewis.

The latest Inspiring Retail Stage programme can be viewed at https://www.springfair.com/seminars and look out for forthcoming updates on more keynote speakers.

Registered visitors can also download the dedicated Spring Fair App for easy access to the schedule and to add sessions to your calendar.

Register at https://www.springfair.com/visitor-registration and keep up to date with our Safe & Secure measures at https://www.springfair.com/visit/safe-secure. Anyone entering into the NEC venue at Spring Fair (including those during build-up and breakdown) will need to show their valid Covid-19 Pass, or a negative result to a Lateral Flow Test taken within 48hours. In addition, aligned to Government guidelines, all attendees will wear a face covering during the show.