Brand Licensing Europe (BLE), the continent’s leading event for licensing and brand extension, has revealed that a record number of delegates and retailers attended Brand Licensing Europe (BLE) 2023, which took place at ExCeL, London, from 4-6 October.
The event welcomed 9,649 licensing professionals, which is 19% more than the 2022 iteration. By 1 pm on the second day of the show, the total attendance from the previous year had already been exceeded.
The event also experienced a significant increase in visitors and retailers from France, Germany, Italy and Spain (FIGS), with an increase of 28% compared to the previous year.
There were 1,166 retailers from 57 nations in attendance, the most in the event’s history and a 31% increase over the previous year.
Key features of BLE 2023 included:
- An extensive range of buyers, such as Uniqlo, Zara, Amazon, Benetton, The Entertainer, ASOS, C&A, H&M, Calzedonia, Carrefour, Fat Face, Galeries Lafayette, Harrods, Aldi, Decathlon, Diechmann, Next, El Corte Ingles, Forbidden Planet, Frasers Group, Primark, Poundland, Accessorize, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Card Factory, Hamley’s, Claire’s Accessories, HMV, Iceland, John Lewis & Partners, Legends, Lidl, Lipsy, Asda, and Selfridges.
- A record-breaking 28% increase in attendance from FIGS territories, which were among licencing professionals from 100 countries at the conference.
- A total of 229 companies exhibited at the show, which was a 12% increase compared to 2022. This total includes a record-breaking 72 new exhibiting firms.
- The Online Meetings Platform saw over 5,100 meetings scheduled in advance (an increase of 17% from 2022), with thousands more being booked on-site.
Laura Freedman-Dagg, head of retail, comments: “This year’s retail presence has been incredible, with really strong attendance from fashion and toy retailers. We’ve also seen an increase in gift and novelty retailers as well as value retailers like Poundland, Matalan, Pepco and Primark. It’s brilliant seeing the retail strategy we introduced in 2021 really paying off to the benefit of the entire industry.”
Brands in Play
The BLE 2024 will take place 24-26 September at ExCeL, London, with the theme Brands in Play. The event will share its theme for the first time with the Licensing Expo in Vegas.
Anna Clarke, SVP licensing, Informa Markets, says: “To celebrate the concept of play, we are dedicating 2024 to Brands in Play, a theme that will run as an undercurrent across BLE and Licensing Expo to spotlight the incredible innovations in play, the power it holds in every stage of life and the creativity it allows when building brands. immersive entertainment, storytelling and fan engagement are changing, and the concept of play is changing with it.
“Today, brands are creating multi-generational, omnichannel play patterns that permeate video games, tabletop, board and card games, location-based entertainment, immersive theatre, sports and esports, toys and kidult culture. Brands are also playing in new spaces, building ground-breaking new extensions and bringing the brand licensing business to life in increasingly creative ways.”
Brand Licensing Europe (BLE)’s 2022 event featured a keynote from Thea Green MBE, founder of Nails.INC and Ben Roberts, EMEA content director at License Global.
