As you’re probably aware earlier this week LAMMA, the UK’s largest farm machinery, equipment and agricultural services show took place at Peterborough. I’m sure many of you even attended the event, just thought I’d write a quick blog on the show.

So on Wednesday I set off from home at around 9am, expecting a reasonably short journey to the show, everything was going really well, the A47 was pretty clear and was sailing into Peterborough, THEN… We hit traffic! It appeared that everyone and their dog decided to head to LAMMA at the same time, it eventually took me an hour to get into the show.  Earlier in the morning it had absolutely chucked it down and as I was guided into a sodden muddy field by a friendly marshall, I just hoped that I would be able to get out of the car park in the afternoon.  I got out of my car, put on my boots (which I fortunately packed) and waded through the mud to the entrance.

I had never been to LAMMA before so I was immediately struck by the scale of the show, it was HUGE! When you walk through the gates you are given a map and list of exhibitors and their stand numbers. But like any man would do I just set off walking in the direction that I wanted to head off in & hope for the best. As you walk around you can’t but help to realise how big of an industry farming actually is. The variety of stands is amazing, yet all as relevant as each other.

One of the reasons for going to LAMMA was to get some marketing contacts from the big machinery guys, the John Deeres, Agco’s & Massey Fergusons of the world. Another of the reasons was to put faces to tweets at the #clubhectate get together at 3pm. This was a fantastic opportunity to meet the people you have been chatting over the past year online. It was really nice to meet everyone there and you were all as friendly and funny as your online personas.

So that was pretty much the end of the first day, a very successful day of getting new contacts, looking at really interested stands and meeting lots of really nice people. 

Yesterday I ventured to the show once again, this time with father in tow as he had a few chemical contacts that he wanted to introduce me too. This time we set off earlier and left home around 7.30am. Typically Dad decided to take his own way to event, using back roads in Peterborough and ignoring the signs that pointed the way, to his credit we actually got there in good time. Whether this was luck or judgement I’m not too sure.  The weather yesterday morning was horrific and the already saturated muddy car parks bore more resemblance to the paddy fields in China. 

The marshalls were splitting up 4×4’s and normal cars. 4×4’s to the muddier parts and the cars to the somewhat drier parts.  I could see the worry in Dad’s face, he likes to think of himself as a bit of an expert driver so this car park was going to test him. He found his spot and I’m sure I could see him look to skies and leave a quick prayer to the god of parking that we would be able to get out later! In fact during this time a car had just got stuck right in the middle of the car park, which was actually quite funny. So in came one of the many overworked tractor drivers to pull him out, this was going to be a very busy day for them!

So onto the show once again. Compared to the day before the number of people around seemed a lot less, think this tends to be the case at these events.  So myself and the old man plodded on and wandered around the showground once again.  The day went really well and I made some really good contacts.  We decided to leave fairly early as to avoid problems with the ploughed up car park, I think this was a good idea as upon leaving I think we counted 5 cars that were stuck and awaiting recovering from the tractors!

Overall it was a really good event, some really fantastic & interesting stands. The highlight for me was finally meeting some the twitter guys & being able to thank in person some of the fantastic bloggers that we have on Farmers Review.

Same again next year…