REVIEW: SLEEP 2016

Sleep was an astounding success this week, held in its usual setting at The Business Design Centre, London this week. This year’s exhibition was a great opportunity to see new products and inspiring new ideas for the hospitality sector. As always, there were some seminars covering some brilliant topics. One of our favourite aspects of the show is the opportunity to network and catch up with some great people including BCFA members.

Grohe, the founding partner and VIP host, were kind enough to invite Design Insider to their press briefing, a preview of the event and a chance to speak to industry professionals.

BCFA members were in abundance, and the 44 members attending were all ecstatic with the turnout and quality of visitors this year. Some even said that they got more enquiries in the first day than over the entire two days in previous years!

The award for best stand by Sleep was given to BCFA member Elegant Clutter. Their stand was certainly an eye-catching one and had a great premise behind it. The entire stand was inspired by and encompassed a single painting and the guys on the stand even had matching outfits! Congratulations!

The Sleep Set competition theme this year was ‘The Science of Tribes’, the different tribes for the sets were: Established, Intellectual, Performer, Digital Avant-garde and Sensory Oriented. Gensler were this year’s winners with their take on the ‘Digital Avant-garde tribe’, so congratulations to them, what a great concept!

There will be an up-coming feature on the different sets, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Design Insider chose Villeroy & Boch for the BCFA Member ‘Best Stand’ award for their innovative way of showing their ‘Artis Basins’. Sue, BCFA Export Manager, lovingly referred to them as ‘Sputniks’!

BCFA members had some fantastic stands but we were notably impressed by Knightsbridge’s stand, it was vivid and unique and really created conversation with visitors.

Overall, Sleep 2016 was a successful event and with a great deal of quality enquiries all round, we all left happy, feeling inspired and enthused for what the hospitality market has in store for the future.