How Groundsfest Upgraded Its Event Operations with FFAIR

Groundsfest has quickly established itself as one of the UK's most exciting and largest grounds management events. The show has grown rapidly, attracting more exhibitors and visitors than initially anticipated. With that growth came new operational challenges and for Marketing Director Chris Bennett and the event operations team, the systems that worked in year one were no longer fit-for-purpose for their exhibitors or the event team.

"Groundsfest started as a completely new event, so in the first year we tasked our web developer to build everything in-house to keep costs down. We had a basic exhibitor portal developed which did the job at the time but as the event grew, we needed a more effective way to manage exhibitors.

The previous process was very manual. We were creating exhibitor profiles individually, sending login details from email accounts and managing everything ourselves. Even simple things like password resets became time-consuming, with a lot of back-and-forth between us and exhibitors. It was incredibly labour-intensive and just not scalable.

The show took off and we attracted more exhibitors than we had originally anticipated (which is fantastic for any launch event!) but we knew we needed to simplify the process not just for us, but for our exhibitors as well.

FFAIR came recommended through our event registration provider, and after seeing the platform, it was an obvious choice. We didn't look at any other systems — we liked what we saw straight away and instantly had full confidence in the FFAIR team.

The impact on our event operations has been substantial. From an internal perspective, it's saved us a significant amount of time and taken away a lot of the manual admin that was slowing us down. But beyond that, it's helped us raise the overall standard of the event for our exhibitors.

The feedback from exhibitors has been really positive. Since implementing FFAIR, exhibitors have found everything much more streamlined compared with our previous solution. Exhibitors always know what tasks they need to complete, and the automated reminders make a big difference in helping us as organisers keep our exhibitors on track.

One of the standout features for us has been the Exhibitor Shop. We offer a range of additional exhibiting services and being able to present these within the platform has made a real difference. Exhibitors can simply add what they need to a basket and pay once, rather than going back and forth over email or referencing a PDF brochure. It's made those services far more visible to exhibitors and much easier for us to manage and deliver.

The support from the FFAIR team has also been exceptional. Lisa, in particular, has been fantastic — always quick to respond and incredibly helpful. When you're implementing a new system, especially if you're not particularly technical, that level of support makes all the difference. The free webinars are highly valuable for developing organisers' knowledge, which in turn enhances the overall user experience for our exhibitors.

Ultimately, FFAIR has helped us move from a very manual, time-consuming pre-event exhibitor experience to something that's streamlined, scalable and professional. Whether it's a new show or a long-running event, I'd strongly recommend FFAIR, it makes scaling easier and keeps your exhibitors happy."