More than 22,000 visitors attended GLEE and GLEE Petindex, held Sept. 16-18 at the National Exhibition Center in Birmingham, England. The multifaceted show attracted over 1,500 exhibitors.

As Europe’s largest annual exhibition for the garden, pet and leisure industries, GLEE provided previews of innovative new products, and also fostered professional relationships among manufacturers and buyers, said show manager Dan Thurlow.

“It’s clear that GLEE continues to be the most vital, all-around product purchasing tool for tens of thousands of people around the industry,” Thurlow said.
The overall visitor count was down from a total 24,530 trade buyers at last year’s GLEE and GLEE Petindex.

A judging panel comprised of industry experts and magazine editors selected 10 products to receive GLEE New Product Awards. Among them:

•  The Num’Axes GPS Dog Tacking Positioning System, a rechargeable GPS unit that attaches to dogs’ collars, from NumAxes (Olivet Cedex, France).

•  The Retractable Ball Thrower, a space-saving ball launcher that retracts into the handle, from Fetch Pet Toys Ltd. (Chichester, West Sussex).

One of the highlights of GLEE Petindex was a dog fashion show organized by the Pet Care Trust (Bedford, United Kingdom). The show featured a special selection of more than 100 pet apparel items and luxury accessories.

Show organizers are already making plans for the next edition of GLEE, to be held Sept. 21-23, 2008, at the same site. “We plan to make continual improvements,” said Thurlow. We have conducted face-to-face and telephone research with a wide cross-section of exhibitors and visitors to find out their views. We are actively taking the results of those findings into consideration as we plan ahead for delivering next year’s show.”