Autumn Fair 2026: four days of free advice, and the half hour that matters most to our category
Autumn Fair 2026 opens at the NEC in Birmingham on Sunday 6th September and runs to Wednesday 9th. If your instinct is that a trade show is something you either exhibit at or ignore, this one is worth a second look, because the entire learning programme is free to attend. The new Counter Talks Stage runs four days of talks, workshops and live conversations, with sessions from Google on practical AI and getting found online, Faire on the trends shaping independent retail, a panel on marketplaces and trust, and Bira's chief executive Andrew Goodacre on tackling retail crime, which is a live problem for anyone with a shop floor. Alongside it there are free thirty-minute one-to-one mentoring sessions in The Clubhouse in Hall 9. You register as a visitor, you turn up, and the only real cost is your train fare and a day out of the business.
The half hour that matters most to us is on the Tuesday. Pitch Live, the show's Dragons' Den style format, runs a session dedicated to Kids, Toy, Play and Clothing at 11am on the Counter Talks Stage, judged by a panel that includes a marketplace buyer and an independent children's retailer. Entries for this year have closed, so this is not something you can jump into now. Go and watch it anyway. You will see how brands in your exact category pitch under pressure, you will hear the questions a working buyer actually asks, and you will come away with a much clearer sense of whether your own range would stand up to them. Then enter next year, having watched a year of it first. That is a far better preparation than a rehearsed script.
A word on the free mentoring, because it is a genuinely generous thing for a show to offer. Thirty minutes of one-to-one time with an experienced retail specialist, at no cost, is not something you get handed very often. The way to honour it is to turn up prepared. Arrive with one clear question rather than five, and bring what the mentor will need to answer it properly: your margins, your best and worst sellers, the retailer conversation that stalled, the part of the range you are unsure about. Thirty minutes is plenty when the question is specific, and almost useless when it is not. Book early too, because the slots are limited and they go.
If you cannot get to the NEC this week and mentoring is exactly what you need, that is something we do at The Nest. We offer a free thirty-minute consultation to give you some initial feedback on where you are, and from there we can talk about how we might support you on an ongoing basis. Children's products are highly regulated, for very good reasons, and there is real value in advice that holds the commercial picture and the regulatory one at the same time. Age grading, testing and safety documentation are not a separate workstream from your range plan. They are part of whether the range can be sold at all, and the earlier they are built in, the cheaper they are.
One last thought about the wider value here. For a new brand, exhibiting at a trade show is a significant investment, and it deserves to return more than a handful of order enquiries. So it is genuinely good to see Autumn Fair building a programme that offers something beyond the selling. Four days of talks, workshops and one-to-one advice mean a brand can come away having strengthened its proposition and not only its order book: a clearer sense of how buyers think, where the market is moving, and which foundations need work before the business grows. That is a better return on the investment than a stand can deliver on its own, and it is why the programme deserves to be walked as carefully as the halls.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
When and where is Autumn Fair 2026, and does it cost anything?
Autumn Fair 2026 runs from Sunday 6th to Wednesday 9th September 2026 at the NEC in Birmingham. It is a trade show, so it is open to businesses rather than the public, and you need to register as a visitor in advance. Attendance is free, as are the Counter Talks sessions and the one-to-one mentoring. Booking early matters for the mentoring slots, which are limited and tend to fill.
I am a small brand, not a retailer. Is a show like this still worth attending?
Yes, and arguably more so. As a visitor you can see how your competitors merchandise and price, watch buyers behave in the aisles, and speak to people who would never take a cold call. The Pitch Live sessions show you how brands in your category present themselves to retail judges, which is difficult information to get any other way. If you are considering exhibiting in future, spending a day as a visitor first is the cheapest possible due diligence on whether the show is right for you.
How do I get the most out of a free thirty-minute mentoring session?
Arrive with one question, not five, and bring real numbers: your margins, your best and worst sellers, the retailer conversation that stalled. Mentors can only be useful about specifics, and thirty minutes disappears quickly. Book early, because the slots are limited. And think beforehand about which part of your problem you most need help with, the commercial side or the category side, so you can put the question in the sharpest form. Finish by asking what they would do next if it were their business, and write the answer down before you leave the hall.
I will be at Autumn Fair this year. If you are going too, I would love to buy you a coffee and hear what you are working on. Reply to this email or drop me a line at The Nest and we will find a time.
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