Loss making Game Fair revived indefinitely under new owners

The final Game Fair run by the CLA was held at Harewood House this summer. Pic: Simon Hulme

After this summer’s 57th CLA Game Fair at Harewood House near Leeds, the Country Land and Business Association announced that after three years of making a loss, the Game Fair had been held for the last time.

But a team of businessmen have stepped in and have taken over the running of the event, and are reviving the 2016 Game Fair which will now be staged in July at Ragley Hall, Warwickshire, as previously planned.

In what is described as a “long-term deal”, the Game Fair is returning indefinitely, although a “review phase” will determine whether the Fair continues to adhere to a migratory format which had, under CLA leadership, seen the event hosted at different country estates from year to year.

Some 131,250 people attended the Fair at Harewood House over three days this summer. The venue previously hosted the event in 2003.

Hertfordshire-based James Gower, an events professional with over 30 years’ experience, is heading up a new company called National Game Fair Ltd to deliver the event from now on, and he did not rule out the Fair from being held in Yorkshire again in the future.

“We may want to consolidate where we want to take the Fair but we still want to review that,” Mr Gower said. “It’s so fresh and new for us, we want to consolidate it and then we need to do our research and go from there. There are no closed doors on that.”

Mr Gower is joined on the board by Jon Fellows and Andy Stevens, who own show guide publisher TRMG Limited, which has produced the official guide to the Game Fair since 2010.

Mr Gower has run several high profile shows including the National Boat Shows and the Ideal Home Show and is confident of turning the Fair around.

He said: “When I saw the CLA was reviewing the Game Fair’s future, I couldn’t believe it. It was still delivering substantial revenues and good attendances but the CLA has costs that event organisers don’t have. It occurred to me that we could step in and still deliver a great event.

“This is a long term investment and we would like to see it continue for many years to come.”

When the event was dropped by the CLA in September, director general Helen Woolley cited an increasingly crowded summer calendar of outdoor events contributing to falling attendance in each of the last three years.

She said this meant the event had failed to generate enough income for it to remain financially sustainable.

A consultation period was then launched to invite proposals from other organisations on how the Game Fair might continue.

Having struck a deal to take the event on, Mr Gower said he had listened to concerns that the Game Fair was too pricey for exhibitors and the public, and that the entry price was being reduced to £22.

“If you get more people paying less and you keep up the quality of what the event offers, everyone wins,” he said.

Dorothy Fairburn, the CLA’s regional director for the North, said she had been encouraged by the enthusiasm shown by National Game Fair Ltd, adding it would be great to see a new operator stage a similar event in the North.