2019 has been a rather busy year has it not? Brexit. Skills crisis. Politics in general. Stagnating economy. And that’s before we get to the issues within UK fenestration. As we approach the end of the year, we often look back at some of the biggest stories to come out of the industry.

One of them was the decision by the FIT Show to go annual just before the door opened in May to the 2020 show. I, like others, were surprised at the announcement, as many were of the assumption that it would be every two years.

This was a bold decision for me. Brexit was still the single biggest question mark yet to be resolved. It risked backlash from parts of the industry that were assuming it would be every two years. But as with most things in life, you go big or you go home, and the decision was made to go annual. And lets be honest with ourselves, we have all heard the grumbles from one area of the industry or another. I do have sympathies, I can imagine plans would have had to change for some. But, whilst we can be honest about our feeling for an annual show, we should also be honest about the fact that this is the industry’s only major gathering of products and people. So whether you agree or not with it being every year, as an industry we have a collective responsibility to support our only UK trade show.

This doesn’t mean spending six figures on huge double-decker stands and carting 40 staff away from their day jobs to keep a three day party going. You can attend and support these shows with something a bit more modest that isn’t a drain on human resources and the bank account. No one is asking companies to break the bank. Go take a look at the FIT Show floorplan and get creative.

Not to put too fine a point on it, regardless of what we think about annual shows or not, this is our only one, and we have to look after it and support it. There was a three year gap after the last Glassex, and it felt like something was missing. We ought to be making the most of what we have.

Here’s the other thing, no one can blame Brexit this year. Thanks to a thumping win for the Conservatives on December 12^th with a huge Commons majority, we know that Boris is now going to pass the Withdrawal Agreement which will take us out of the EU on January 31^st. We know that we’ll enter a transition period with the EU where both parties will attempt to nail down a trade deal by December 31^st 2020. We know that if there isn’t one that we’ll leave the transition period on that date and go to WTO rules, thanks to legislation about to be announced by the Government this week. Of course the finer details of a trade agreement are to be decided, but its widely expected that they won’t differ all that much from what we’re already used to. So, if you’re thinking of blaming Brexit for anything this year, don’t. We all know what’s about to happen and we can all plan around it.

Perhaps most importantly, the FIT Show is the single marquee event in which the most influential people and companies in the sector can be gathered in one place and help enact change. Be it through conversations on forums, private meetings on the side, or general group discussion. 2020 is going to be an absolutely immense year for the PVCu sector as it gets to grips with sustainability and how it can massively change its public image. We can talk online about it all day long, which I fully intend to do next year, but at the FIT Show you can sit down with recyclers, talk with marketing companies, find new environmentally friendly suppliers. The right people are in the right room to help make your business better.

So, to round off in usual DGB bluntness, get over the decision to go annual and help support the only UK trade show we have. If you don’t, you’ll wonder why an industry worth nearly £5bn isn’t represented properly.

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