That section will undoubtedly give Earls Court a go. Most will wait to see if it will get enough support to be worth trying - perhaps with a small stand and still doing ExCeL on a smaller scale.

Many will be locked into ExCeL as it still holds the overall prestige spot as the official London Show (for now) and their brand will need to be seen there.

Personally, I think the argument that Earls Court will not work because it clashes with the Paris show holds little water. Many of the bigger companies attend Paris via their French dealers and few of the smaller companies attend Paris anyway.

So how, in PR terms, do we approach a new show with no track record, an industry body that will surely fight hard to knock it out and your competitors waiting to see what everyone else does?

There’s no instant answer to this, but waiting in the wings could be very dangerous. My fear is we may end up with two poor events - possibly one hall at ExCeL and just the ground floor of Earls Court 1.

And a very confused public.

So we all need to make some fairly strong decisions and come out of the closet to make it known what we are intending. That way we might at least get one show worth going to and the public will know where they can visit their favourite stands.

It’s going to be an interesting year…