Cake International and Hosting Our Stand (2024)

Where has the time gone?

We can’t believe it’s been two weeks since we hosted our stand at Cake International. We had no idea how the show would play out, but WOW! What a weekend! We were truly welcomed into the Cake International community when we arrived.

The build-up

We first reached out to Cake International in June with no idea what we were doing but 5 months later here we were. On Thursday (31^st Oct) Mark loaded up the car and headed to the NEC to set up the stand. This involved dropping everything off, building the sequin wall, and setting up the balloon arch. Sequin wall was completed, and balloons were bursting left right, and center, but 4 hours later the stand was ready. A nervous night followed; would the balloon arch last the night?  

The Show (1^st – 3^rd November)

Thankfully, Friday morning arrived and the balloon arch had suffered no further losses. A team of Mark, Becky and Sam and with no events/marketing experience between us, we were anxiously waiting for the Cake International doors to open.

The first few hours were a learning curve, we were trying to raise awareness of the FindABake website, gain customer and baker feedback with our survey, and promote a giveaway whilst at the same time sourcing items for the giveaway. We completely dived head-first into the deep end. However, a very positive and encouraging conversation, a conversation that changed the course of the weekend. We owe a massive thank you to the lady who took the time to give us some much-needed feedback and a “pick me up” pep talk. Her guidance and belief that the baking community needed FindABake really pushed us forward for the rest of the weekend. If you are reading this, thank you!  

On Saturday, we made a few tweaks to the stand, we were much more prepared than Friday. We were also joined by Jess (Sugar Sparrow) who was fantastic in getting some much-needed content to share with our followers and helping us raise awareness of the stand.

Saturday was the best day of the show. So many of you were keen to view the platform and buy into the problem we are trying to solve. We received much-needed feedback, opinions, and just general positivity. The sequin wall was popular, and we were one of the busiest stands in our section.

Sunday Mark started the day on his own, later joined by Sam. The day started off with a visit from Zoe who had some encouraging words to share. Being a shorter day, it did get a bit quieter in the afternoon. By 4pm we were done for the weekend.