As I write this there are less than two weeks to go until InstallerSHOW and, as I am thinking about little else at the moment, I am sure you’ll forgive me for writing this column about it too. And forgive my breathless excitement, because, dear insight reader, this show is set to be tremendous for anyone involved in reducing carbon, and intent on pursuing Net Zero with enthusiasm. Let’s face it, that’s all of us.
I might have the wide-eyed enthusiasm of someone who hasn’t been involved with putting on a major exhibition for a very long time (Does anyone remember Interbuild? We wrote a Show Daily Newspaper. Does anyone remember newspapers?), but the amount of content that is being put on for show visitors is eye-watering.
I know that many of you show veterans will be raising a world-weary eye at this point, since some exhibitions often treat their theatre content as something of an afterthought, without a great deal of commitment to actually informing or provoking the visitor.
But from the perspective of my role as Editor at Large with elemental, I can safely say that this year’s elemental show theatres have been, to pinch a phrase from the creative world, curated with the needs of specifiers and building owners and operators in mind. We have speakers coming from all over the industry and all over the country to present and debate on the important topics in carbon reduction – whether that is heat pumps, heat networks, EV charging or delivering sustainable public buildings, to name but four.
Whilst headlines might have been grabbed by some of our high-profile speakers – and which visitor active in the built environment doesn’t want to hear whether Gary Neville is as provocative about sustainability as he is about VAR or the No-Centre-Forward policy? – there are well over a hundred speakers from all corners of the supply chain bringing their expertise to topics such as IAQ and fuel poverty, who are certain to give visitors much to think about and take away. One of the great benefits of the elemental approach throughout the year is that we don’t shy away from the detail, so we don’t just talk about, for example ‘commercial buildings’ in a general way but we drill into the specific challenges of healthcare, leisure and local authority supply chains – and there is something for all of those in the Decarbonising Buildings Theatre. Our detailed approach also applies to scale too: Typifying this is that amongst the highlights of Wednesday 28th we have a discussion on the citywide decarbonising of Bristol, but on the same day, we home in on the specific benefits of individual technologies with the Unsung Heroes of Energy Savings. This also wins the prize for the session that most sounds like a Marvel film.
I could bang on for a long time about other highlights in the Decarbonising Buildings Theatre – which is where you will find me by the way – but there are a host of other really good things to mention and I am running out of space, so I will give you three more:
- Those involved with housing should check out the elemental Housing Hub, which features its own programme, including the NHIC Home Upgrade conference;
- For anyone with questions around the electric ecosystem, there is EV: The Future Is Electric – a whole zone dedicated to EV charging and associated issues, brought to you by industry association BEAMA;
- The Heat Pump Ready zone, which is a collaboration between the government and the heat pump industry, with presentations, guidance and technology specialists on hand.
And all that is just highlights of the content for specifier visitors. There is an equivalent selection of theatres and presentations for installers too. And then, there Is the equally important business of the show’s 450 exhibitors – each with technology to show and opportunities to discuss. And then there is the networking… I told you it was eye-watering. Come and witness it for yourselves…It’s Showtime!
