In my
surly article looking back on 2007 and forward to 2008 I'd suggested, for the purposes of provoking debate (it didn't), a canard that the cost of the BETT show could fund the objective of the Home Access Task Force that Jim Knight, UK Minister for Schools, had proposed at the opening of BETT 2007. This year Jim
announced that
£30 Million would be set aside to ensure access for up to 800,000 disadvantaged learners who do not have access to the Internet at home.
How close did my number crunching suggestion get?
Well let's have a guess. Remember this is only a bit of fun and I enjoy meeting my friends and doing a spot of business at BETT as much as anyone else so take this in the manner it's meant and don't assume it's entirely accurate. Industry shows are vital as a way of conveying the latest information, seeing new products and networking. Few trade shows do this as well as BETT.
BETT draws a crowd of 30,000 people. If we assume that 25,000 of these are teachers there is a daily cost to the state for them to be in attendance plus the cost of a relief teacher whilst they are not at school. Let's average out these costs and allocate £125 for a teacher/relief teacher day. There'll be some rule breaking, i.e. not all teachers will be "relieved" so let's say that we have 40,000 teacher days at £125 = £5 Million.
Let's put in a figure for transportation and subsistence costs, say £50, per day per person on average - £1.25 Million
Then we have the cost of the 5000 odd senior policy makers and other executives who we can assume cost a bit more, say £250 per day and attend for at least 2 days on average each giving a figure of £2.5 Million
Then there is the cost of the exhibition floor space to exhibitors who will recoup this cost through the sale of their products.The total space is 22,900 m2 and @ £364 per m2 this works out at around £8 Million
Then we have the cost of the stands, contractors, electrical fittings, hired furniture, internet connections, etc. Let's be conservative here and suggest £125 per m2 which gives us around £2.8 Million
Then there's promotion, flyers, hospitality events, etc., a best guess would be around £2.5 million across the board.
Finally, we have exhibition stand staff and their accommodation in London, let's say 1800 staff at £325 per day (for 3 days) including hotel and subsistence coming out at £1.7 Million
Which brings us to a running total of
£23.75 Million.
Not far off and I've quite possibly missed something, anybody want to chip in?
More BETT 2008 info here:
http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,48/topic,1189.0
FORUM
General Area 
