Spannabis 2013
The biggest show in the Cannabis industry celebrated its tenth birthday with a bang! Bigger, better and busier than ever; Spannabis 2013 was one hell of a weekend.
The biggest show in the Cannabis industry celebrated its tenth birthday with a bang! Bigger, better and busier than ever; Spannabis 2013 was one hell of a weekend.
The biggest show in the Cannabis industry celebrated its tenth birthday with a bang! Bigger, better and busier than ever; Spannabis 2013 was one hell of a weekend.
Spannabis has always been the king of the trade show calendar, but with stiff competition from the likes of CannaFest in Prague, GrowMed in Valencia and ExpoGrow in Irun, it felt right that the tenth anniversary show was on a much larger scale than usual.
Stepping off the plane on the Thursday before the show, I was hit with an unfamiliar feeling... it actually felt a bit nippy! In my five years of visiting Spannabis, I've usually been greeted with a nice bit of sun. A welcome break from the shitty British winter! Not so much this year. In fact, on the Friday of the show, it actually rained!
Luckily there was plenty going on in the show hall to raise the body temperature. Walking through the entrance doors of the - pyramid shaped - Fiera de Cornella, visitors were greeted by a bevy of beautiful Spanish promo girls. All hired by the exhibitors to hand out freebies and entice guests onto their stand. The pictures don't really do them justice... there were some stunners out there!
It’s great fun wandering around the various booths, picking up samples as you go and having a good chat to the exhibitors – most of them are so friendly, they are only too happy to talk you through their latest product. After all, that’s why they’re exhibiting… to get growers to try new things and entice them to try their brand.
As with most of the trade shows, you can get a bit weighed down with all of the free goodies being handed out. Better to be a bit selective and pick the products you are actually interested in, rather than grab everything in sight. Having said that, when you’re being handed a promo bag by a scantily dressed, very attractive Spanish girl, it can be pretty difficult to refuse!
As well as free samples being handed out, there were some awesome giveaways by the exhibitors. On the Sunday evening, I saw some lucky guy win a complete grow room set-up worth eight grand! He got given everything; lights, fan, filter, nutrients, systems and all wrapped up in a nice 3m x 3m grow tent. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving... what a win. Plus the exhibitor didn’t have to dismantle their booth and drive it back home with them, smart thinking!
Not everything was plain sailing though, a quick read through the Spannabis Facebook page when I returned home revealed a few comments from disgruntled visitors complaining that the crowds caused by some of the nutrient sample giveaways were dangerous. I must admit, it was a little annoying not to be able to walk down some of the aisles without getting crushed by people trying to get their hands on a few bottles of free nutes. Have a little search on Youtube and you’ll be able to find some videos on the mobs pushing through the barriers and grabbing a few handfuls. Still, I guess all publicity is good publicity.
Another good thing about Spannabis is that some of the bigger Spanish grow shops have started to exhibit. Chatting to them gives you the opportunity to find out what is going on in the Spanish market; what strains people are growing and what products are selling well. One of the things that really surprised me is that, despite the weather being well suited to growing outdoors, more and more Spanish growers are taking things indoors. The shops that I spoke to said that the indoor scene has really exploded in the last two or three years as people have moved to the bigger cities to find work, they no longer have lots of outdoor space like they did when they lived in smaller towns or villages in the countryside.
There are lots of small-scale, one light growers. All cultivating themselves a nice bit of bud to smoke and avoid paying the dealers’ high prices for shit weed.
They seem to have brought the outdoor mentality and techniques indoors with them. Organic feeds are really big business in Spain, with all the main nutrient players pushing their organic products rather than their mineral feeds. The growers like to keep it simple and cheap, which makes sense for a market that is still deep into economic recession.
As far as strains go, it’s now heavily biased towards Autoflowering seed varieties. Literally all of the seed banks that were in attendance were promoting their Autoflowering catalogue. I guess when the market wants something that offers a quick turnaround and is nice and simple to cultivate, Auto’s are the answer.
Now there is so much competition in the market for Auto’s, we’re starting to see all of the big seed banks developing Automatic varieties of their big name strains. It was really making my mind work overtime on the plane journey home; day dreaming about owning a nice little Spanish apartment, with a rolling harvest of different Auto varieties on the go. That’s what you get for smoking before flying!
If you've never made the trip out of the UK to one of the European trade shows, Spannabis in Barcelona is certainly one to consider. It's still the industry's biggest trade show and the one show of the calendar where the exhibitors really pull out all of the stops. Great girls, awesome giveaways and some great products are guaranteed... just don't bank on the weather being warm!
What are you waiting for? Get that ticket booked now!
Safe travels and happy growing.
S
Soft Secrets
