TROPHEX

www.trophex.com

In a conversation on Twitter the other morning, following my bewilderment at yet again being overlooked for a BAFTA nomination, @mangowe drew my attention to the world of trophy manufacture.

It's surprisingly difficult to find out much about the trophy industry. Not because any conscious secrecy on their part, but just because Googling various combinations of the words "awards" and "manufacturing" and "trophies" and "design" tends just to bring up awards for manufacturing or trophies for design.

There are lots of companies which supply awards, but they're all quite small, and I don't know - don't get me wrong, I'd be pleased to win ANY award - but if I found out my eg Britain's Loveliest Man award had been bought from a company called Better Trophies Better Prices ("If you're looking for better trophies at better prices you've found them!"), I wouldn't be so thrilled.

Anyway, Trophex. You might be thinking "Why should attend?" Well, as the Trophex website explains:

Trophex is the dedicated trophy, award and personalisation exhibition in the UK.

The show is free to attend and there’s free parking.

Well, those are quite convincing reasons.

Looks like news is a bit slow, with the next Trophex show not until January. Reports of the 2009 show sound positive though:

As always Trophex is very well attended and Sunday especially saw a vast number of trophy retailers visit the show. Martin Lakin from Timbertown Trophies in Woodville near Burton-on-Trent has only missed one Trophex in the last 10 years. He regularly visits the show to see the new range of products that are coming out. The show is also a great opportunity to find new areas to expand his business into, 70% of which is in motor racing, so he combines his visit to Trophex with a visit to the Autosport International exhibition which takes place at the NEC Birmingham at the same time.

I recognise this point is slightly weakened by the fact that I've copied and pasted this paragraph, but why would anyone, other than possibly Martin Lakin's wife, be interested in any of that?

Working in the trophy industry means always being the bridesmaid and never the bride. There doesn't appear to be a trophy designer of the year award. There's no trophy manufacturer of the year. I guess this is just because they could never figure out who should design the award. You'd get yourself into one of those strange loops that don't make sense, like the plot of the first Terminator film or something.

I think this is possibly the greatest title for a technical document ever.