Shopping at LIHS

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Muddywellies

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What are people's thoughts on this year's shopping? I felt like it wasn't as good as it used to be. Fewer horse stands and more 'lifestyle' ones selling reed diffusers and expensive gin I guess the arena has taken up tradestand space. Usually I'm overwhelmed by the array of tradestands but this year I wasn't.
 
Quite a few second hand clothes shops as well which is new. Reflective of people's pockets. I know a few of the traders there and as of yesterday evening it was a lot less busy than previous years. Agree the shopping was disappointing. The smallest space is £4k so adding travel, accommodation costs etc for staff on the bigger stalls makes it very expensive.

Sad to see F&F diversifying into clothes more than their shoes/bags. They were sold out of a lot of their boots by day 2 so hadn't taken much stock. Both F&F and H&C had much smaller spaces this year which were very cramped and impossible to navigate.

Fortunately the wonderful FSM and other shows made up for it.
 
I should have added in my original post that there was a tradestand that was selling some sort of facial light therapy mask thing. My God she was pushy and would pounce on you when you walk past, then when you politely said 'no thank you' she said 'but why, it's amazing'. She must have done that about three times to me so in the end I avoided that aisle she was on. I really didn't get into the shopping this year at all.
 
Shopping didn’t impress me this year but I didn’t really mind as that’s not why I go. Friend and I still had a walk round it all and she got a few Christmas presents.

There didn’t seem to be many horsey tack shops with loads of bargains like there used to be. Too many in the H&C/F&F price bracket, stuff I’d never dream of wearing near an actual horse. There seemed to be a lot of jewellery stands and a few wine ones too.

I do like the picture restoration guy who restores old book pages from Winnie the Pooh, Beatrix Potter etc. I spent quite some time browsing there but having bought some prints from him last year didn’t want or need anymore.

Closest I got to buying anything was hay nets and in the end I didn’t bother.
 
Muddywellies said:
I should have added in my original post that there was a tradestand that was selling some sort of facial light therapy mask thing. My God she was pushy and would pounce on you when you walk past, then when you politely said 'no thank you' she said 'but why, it's amazing'. She must have done that about three times to me so in the end I avoided that aisle she was on. I really didn't get into the shopping this year at all.
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I didn't see this stand.

Were there shops in the main arena side aswell as the side where the London arena is?
 
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I didn't need anything but got a few things. I didn't really spend that long in the shopping area so just whizzed through on the way out today.

Had a re-stock of EqWax products & Cool Horse Socks (which are one of the few brands I don't wear out), a base layer and a new rug for pony too. Oh, plus some Christmas treats for pony.

Non-horse wise I bought a second hand cashmere jumper from a stand I've seen at a few of the shows and a scarf.

I find the trick to show shopping is not to need anything in the first place. The minute you need something, you won't ever find it!
 
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