Professional Beauty India is the only international beauty trade exhibition in India. The show is held by Professional Beauty, who organizes 13 shows in 7 countries, specialized to the latest trends, knowledge and products for skin, hair, make-up, nails, spa and furniture brands from around the world. On August (8-9) New Delhi's edition will take place again and we have been interviewing the responsible for the event, so if you are planning to attend or just for some curiosity, don't miss any detail!
New Delhi's Professional Beauty India is the only international beauty exhibition in India. What makes this show so special among other similar shows?
Professional Beauty started off in London with its first show 27 years back and ever since then, we haven’t looked back; expanding to different cities, countries and continents. We now organise 14 shows in 6 countries including our newly acquired Salon International exhibition. When we launched in India five years back, our aim was to assist Indian and international brands develop and expand in the market, explore new opportunities and reach potential buyers with the help of our shows. Working across our global teams, we have been able to help brands enter the Indian market and establish a good presence. Over time, we have been able to replicate the success of our international shows in India and we’re focused on delivering even more value to the industry going forward. Crucially, the support from our partners, exhibitors and visitors have been immense, making Professional Beauty a super-hit show each time.
What are the highlights of this year’s edition?
This year marks our fifth year in India and we have even more exciting things lined up for our audiences.
For the Delhi show, we have two national level competitions coming up for make-up and hair artists (one hosted by association AIHBA, and one by VTCT and Make-Up Studio). Both these competitions give young talent an opportunity to showcase their skills and talents in front of our expert jury panel. We are also bringing the global hair show Salon International to India as “Salon India” at our Mumbai show in September.
Salon India will see top Indian and International hair artists deliver exhilarating hair shows, more educational seminars and exclusive product discounts from leading hair brands. Moreover, we have new products and multiple brand launches happening exclusively across both our shows! We are also organising our first nail competition for the region, The Nail Premier League at the Mumbai show that focuses on congregating and recognising talented nail technicians in the country. All in all, it’s an exciting year for us at Professional Beauty India and we can’t wait for our audiences to see what we have up our sleeves for them.
The show attracts a national and international audience, can you give some tips for those exhibiting in New Delhi for the first time?
Given our expertise in the exhibition business and over time, we have worked out what works for our exhibitors and what doesn’t. We suggest that exhibitors showcase as many relevant products as they can because this is the time they will meet people right from freelancer beauticians to owners of corporate salon chains and national level distributors and importers.
Exhibitors should also be clear about their objective for exhibiting, whether it is generating sales on the day, connecting with key accounts, showcasing new products and techniques, or finding distributors and they should ensure their team understands this when communicating with clients. It is also imperative that all the new exhibitors hire knowledgeable staff for the shows because they will meet key buyers and distributors and good communication always plays a key role in fulfilling objectives.
What is the exhibition profile, and who can attend Professional Beauty India?
Professional Beauty is primarily aimed at the finished products end of the beauty and cosmetics market, as well as related tools, equipment and machinery. Within that overarching profile we have a wide array of exhibitors, be it make-up products to hair and beauty equipment to skin and spa products. We’re also seeing more and more leading technology and machinery being introduced to the market targeting salons and clinics as an additional source of business.
From a visitor’s point of view, the show is purely professional so we connect exhibitors with their corporate buyers and distributors from the region. As we say, it’s here at Professional Beauty “Where Beauty Meets Business”.
Professional Beauty celebrates 14 shows in 6 countries but talking about beauty, there is a common canon or each country perceived the beauty in a different way? What is the trend in India, for example?
Beauty trends differ across the world, due to differing cultures, buying patterns and socio-economic factors.
And from our experience organising 14 shows in 6 countries, we have noticed the difference in the perception of what the term ‘beautiful’ means to different people. For instance, in India fairness creams are in high demand as opposed to the U.K. where people are more into tanning products. Furthermore, people in some countries are more experimental when it comes to their beauty norms as opposed to others where people tend to stick to traditional notions of beauty. In Ireland, women aren’t afraid to dye their hair to a red hue or shave off parts of their heads, but in India, that liberal style is yet to emerge. Additionally, beauty is a highly objective thing to quantify; we develop our own standards of beauty taking cues from our families, surroundings, society, culture and peers.
With time, the concept of beauty keeps changing, like for example back in 2000, perming your hair was the biggest trend, as opposed to today where ‘the lob’ and ‘the bob’ hairstyles are favoured across India. Being a part of an industry that keeps evolving and changing with time and given the cultural difference, it’s hard to say if there is a common canon of how beauty is perceived in different countries but because of globalisation and social media what we are noticing is a faster adoption of trends in India from overseas, so whilst India will probably always have its own unique trends there will also be more overlap with what’s happening across developed markets.
What supposes Professional Beauty India to the annual calendar of the industry?
When we launched in India 5 years back there was no such beauty expo of this kind. The only “calendar events” were international ones. Ever since our launch, Professional Beauty India has grown to become an intrinsic date for industry professionals in their annual calendar. When we release our show dates, it is not only the professionals who register for the show but also the suppliers, distributors and stockists who “save the date”. Being the top beauty expo in the country, there is a lot of pressure on us to announce the dates in advance so that visitors can plan their trips. During our show in Kolkata earlier this year, people travelled from remote areas of Assam, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh to attend our show which amounted to travel times of 8-9 hours plus! It is definitely one of the most awaited periods for the beauty industry in India.
Professional Beauty today has become a key point in the buying calendar and is the hotspot for professionals to meet and showcase new trends, leverage big discounts and set the scene for the upcoming seasons. We are starting to hear requests from our visitors about our confirmed dates in 2017, so it’s safe to say that the industry eagerly looks forward to the Professional Beauty shows and mark them as important dates in the industry calendar.
Finally, can you give us some participation results from the last edition? (number of visitors, exhibitors...)
- Visitors: 33,249 visitors in 2015
- Exhibitors: 265+ exhibitors in 2015 representing over 1,200 brands
- Total exhibitors space: 14,565 sqm across our shows
- VIP's: 1,589 VIP's in 2015