Around the exhibition

Throughout the conference I made several visits to the main exhibition area. The days of the mega stands have long gone, now its about business, not flash.

I noticed that many firms had freebies of varying types. Mostly  low cost sweets, mints etc. Some had stress balls, others stuffed toys - and then some had fresh juice, smoothies, coffee, massage and one a caricature artist.

I noticed that on day one there was a lot to have, however on the third and final day (morning) there was a lot less. So to those that had both planned well here is a photo montage of the stands and their offers...

SCALA and their free juice

DPG and their teddy bears

Tetramap & their wide range of stress balls

Imagine and their caricature drawing, ethical chocolate & beanie teddy bear

Blackrock and their black stress balls, mints and cakes - great brand colours - they stood out at this event

Simplyhealth & their massage

Other notable freebies included coaching sessions from Unlimited Potential

These providers made a focus of their 'give aways'. There were many more - but they were either 'uninspiring' such as the stands that had quality street or pens, some had gone to great effort to have things on the stand, but made it difficult for visitors to have them. here was a rumour that one stand had soft toy elephants - but there was little evidence that there were available as a 'general' give away.

While going around there were a couple of stands worthy of special mention:

The team at HR Recruitment Solutions for pro-actively fund raising for Guide dogs for the blind

TwitterJobSearch for being the first exhibitor to book a stand by twitter! @twitjobsearch