It was standing room only at yesterday's 2013 bira conference - combining a tailor-made conference for retailers, a separate schedule of speeches for suppliers and a collective High St Conference for everyone during the afternoon.
Businesses were rewarded for outstanding achievements as part of the bira direct Suppliers Awards, while a gala dinner saw accolades handed out to a plethora of retailers, employees, suppliers and individuals.
Categories included bira young retailer of the year - awarded to Frances Procter - supplier of the year for garden and DIY (Everbuild) and charitable champion - won jointly by Matthew Hansford, Camp Hopson Charity Committee and Roger Morgan.
Highlights of the conference itself included an energetic talk from The Tool Shop owner and bira stalwart Vin Vara about what makes a good supplier from an independent retailer's point of view.
Mr Vara outlined the importance of staff training, using his own workforce as examples, as well as that of engaging retailers, offers and good stock availability. He also explained exactly what made a supplier 'good', 'bad' and 'ugly', saying of the latter that "luckily there aren't many in our sector. Those who are tend to have a sales team who is completely disconnected from the business' supply chain, putting orders through for the sake of it even when the stock isn't there."
Another lively offering came from TV's David Domoney, who identified novel retailing ideas from across the globe. Examples included state-of-the-art jewellery marketed in antique cases in Florence, Italy, beautiful Persian carpets sold in middle of the desert between Omar and Dubai, the everything-out-front market stalls of Hong Kong and the varity of Rag Market in Birmingham.
Dipping into the retailers' conference, and delegates heard from owner of The Dressing Room Deryane Tadd, who took them on a journey of start up to national brand success, and founder of Groople Warren Knight, who demystified the bridge between and offline and digital-savvy business.
The afternoon sessions included several topical subjects, from Dr Jonathan Reynolds of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management explaining the 'perfect storm' effects of online retail as well as predicting the winners and losers of the next 10 years, to TV industry commentator Kate Hardcastle discussing how retailers can bring the benefits of face to face high street retailing to their online profile.
The conference ended with an animated panel discussion on topics ranging from the Portas pilot the future of the high street as we know it.