GroundsFest 2024 took place10 - 11 September at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire. Initial visitor numbers from day 1 (unaudited) of 4,738 were 40% up on last year, the show’s inaugural year.

The podcast was recorded on day 2 of GroundsFest amongst the hustle and bustle of the show. HortWeek senior reporter Rachael Forsyth spoke with Chris Bassett, event director at GroundsFest, Jonathan Snowball head of professional at Husqvarna and David Fisher head of landscape and rural at LANTRA about how the show has been going so far.

Snowball explained that Husqvarna took advantage of the outdoor space making its entire stand a live demo area – one section for chainsaws and another for robotic lawn mowers and ride on machines. Bassett explained that this was a USP when setting up GroundsFest, allowing exhibitors to have that flexibility with their space and offering something different for visitors.

Fisher said conversations at the show centred around the skills shortage with LANTRA facilitating a “well attended” seminar on the challenges and opportunities in the amenity sector. Questions arose around where the next generation is coming from, keeping people in the industry, and how we can best show off what careers and pathways look like.

Bassett said the show has had really good feedback so far, and while you will never get 100% positive feedback the team is ready to make tweaks based on feedback for next year. Overall, though, Bassett said visitors are enjoying being able to get their hands on the kit and test it.

See: www.groundsfest.com

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