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The second annual, well in October anyway, Caravan and Motorhome Show was held at the National Exhibition Centre Birmingham, (NEC), from 14 to 19 October 2008. To say that this show was big would be a tiny understatement, it was huge!

Covering eleven halls the walk from the extremities was around 1000 yards or so, it seemed further. The day visitors would have no chance whatsoever of seeing even a fraction of the exhibits unless they knew exactly what they wanted to see and only looked at those items.

The Caravan Club organised their usual temporary campsite, which we stayed on, complete with electric hook-ups, a restaurant and evening entertainment, we sampled both and found them to be very good.

So to the show, was it any good? We thought that the show itself was excellent, huge numbers of things to look at, try, sample, poke at, and generally ogle at. We understand that the first day’s attendance was in the region of 10,000 people through the gates, there did not seem to be so many, mainly we think because of the huge amount of space available and the lovely wide corridors everywhere.

This show followed the trend that is occurring both in our country and Europe whereby motorhomes are outselling caravans, there were more motorhomes on the stands than caravans, for what we think is the first time this difference was noticeable. All the caravans were in one hall which from our point of view was a good thing as we had to judge them and we did not have to walk so far.

Because of this judging we did not have much time to wander and gawp at things, we did not however in our wanderings see anything that caused us to look and say “wow” Whale was exhibiting a new method of filling and supplying water to motorhomes but in our estimation it needs a bit more thought put into it for retro fitting.

Avondales were being sold at huge discounts, and, we heard, selling extremely well, the entire stock of 135 ‘vans had been bought by a dealer who gambled and appeared to succeed.

Several of the Continental motorhome manufacturers had brought out cheaper ranges with different names so as not to cheapen their own brand, these ‘vans were, seemingly, very good value and looked attractive, it is only by living with them and in them that you can find out what they are really like.

We did make a mistake once by buying a motorhome at a show once and regretted it until we sold it a year later, motto, don’t get carried away, take your time, go back several times, look at the others, you know what we mean.

Accessories were in plentiful supply, you could buy most things associated with, and also not associated with, our wonderful activity.
If you wanted to try towing before buying, or just try, both of the Clubs were running fleets of caravans for this purpose, all logoed up to the nines.

Digital TV has spawned a whole new industry, your ‘van can sprout dishes and bumps all over if that’s what you want, together with the blessing, and curse, of satellite navigation systems, you needed one for this show, computers and wi-fi et al.

There did not seem to be so many tow cars this time, times are hard for the car companies with the “government” policies of envy and greed that are in place, a pity, without cars you cannot have caravans.

All in all we thought this October show was very good, but for the boating people the February NEC show will be the better one.

Adrian H French

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