By Samantha Loveday, Licensing Source<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Brand Licensing Europe got off to a strong start yesterday, with brand director Anna Knight telling The Source that visitor numbers were up for day one.<\/p>\n And Anna also confirmed some key changes to the showfloor design for 2018, with the National Hall (on the ground floor) coming into play.<\/p>\n Anna commented: \u201cLook around, look at how busy it is. I can tell you factually numbers are up for day one and, based on pre-reg forecasts, I would say we will be comfortably up by the end of day three.\u201d<\/p>\n The popular Matchmaking service had 2,950 meetings confirmed across the three days, in comparison to 1,700 last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThat in itself is an amazing statistic,\u201d Anna continued. \u201cAlso, ASOS, Ann Summers, Missguided and Robert Dyas are all actively requesting meetings, which is really good to see, and some of the European retailers are starting to take it on as well which is great.\u201d<\/p>\n The main aisle once again hosted the annual Character Parade at 11am, with 76 characters taking part this year. Both the Licensing Academy and the Brands & Lifestyle Theatre were also busy across all the featured seminars.<\/p>\n Looking ahead to 2018, Anna told The Source about some key changes to further strengthen the show.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Brands and Lifestyle area will be in the National Hall in 2018,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are actually going to be launching a competition to design the entrance to Brands & Lifestyle \u2013 I think it\u2019s a really good way, hopefully, of getting the industry to actually think about how they want to be represented.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also really want to look after Art and Design and see it back to where it used to be. It was interesting to see in the LIMA report that retail sales for art and design are actually starting to grow again, which is very positive. So Art and Design will also be part of the National Hall, creating a brand new zone.<\/p>\n Anna continued: \u201cWhat I want to feel is that it\u2019s one cohesive show, still with each zone having it\u2019s own feel and it\u2019s own particular type of space for exhibitors, but part of one overall show.\u201d<\/p>\n With two days still to go, Anna is also keen to receive feedback from both exhibitors and visitors on how UBM can further improve the event.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cFor me, I\u2019d like them to think that we\u2019ve listened; that we want to work with our exhibitors. This isn\u2019t the UBM show, this is their show and our visitors show and we\u2019re all about partnership and collaboration. We want to know what we can do to improve, we\u2019ll listen to feedback and we\u2019ll do the best we can to make this the best it can be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Visitors up for day one says brand director Anna Knight; key changes revealed for 2018. By Samantha Loveday, Licensing Source Brand Licensing Europe got off to a strong start yesterday, with brand director Anna Knight telling The Source that visitor numbers were up for day one. And Anna also confirmed some key changes to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[408],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n