Five years in, you’d think it would be plain sailing. It isn’t. Knowing what you’re doing doesn’t change the amount of work you have to do, as any decorator reading this will already know.
Trade Decorator LIVE is on the 3rd and 4th of June at Bolton Wanderers Stadium, and I’m writing this with about five weeks to go. Which is the bit where every show organiser I’ve ever spoken to says the same thing, it’s the not knowing that gets you. So I thought I’d write honestly about it, because I think decorators deserve honesty more than they deserve another marketing email.
The Difference With This Show
Most trade shows are built around manufacturers. They’re sold to manufacturers, structured around manufacturers, and the decorator experience is whatever’s left over after the floor plan has been worked out.
Trade Decorator LIVE was built the other way round. The community came first, and the show exists to serve it. Every decision flows from that, why we cap training sessions at 10 people, why the seminar speakers are mostly working decorators rather than manufacturer reps, why we’re in Bolton and not in a London exhibition centre. None of those are accidents.
It’s also why the smaller, more interesting manufacturers turn up. They’re the ones who get what we’re trying to do, they exhibit because they want to talk to decorators properly, not because they want to dump 5,000 leaflets in goody bags.
Try Before You Buy at The Spray Zone
If you’ve been thinking about getting into spraying but haven’t pulled the trigger on a sprayer yet, this is the bit that might interest you most.
The Spray Zone, run by Abode Decorating Training Academy, lets you actually pick up the gear and have a go. Not stand at the back and watch, but actually get hands-on, with a trainer next to you. Airless, HVLP, granite spraying,different machines, different techniques, different jobs. You can try the lot.
Spraying is one of those skills where the right kit pays for itself fast, but the wrong kit gathers dust in the van. The decorators I know who’ve cracked it earn properly more per job. The decorators who haven’t tend to be the ones who bought a sprayer based on a YouTube video and put it back in the box after a difficult day. Trying before you buy isn’t a gimmick, it’s the smart way to do this. There are also some funded training routes available for eligible decorators, but the details are on the show site.
Free Hands-On Training, With a Catch
Two sponsors are running proper hands-on training at this year’s show, small groups, manufacturer-led, completely free with your ticket. One covers a high-end repair system most decorators have heard of but few have actually used. The other covers a decorative finish that earns proper money once you know how to sell it (and the session covers that side too, pricing, pitching, the lot).
The catch? Places are deliberately limited. We’d rather a small group got proper one-to-one time with the manufacturer than a big crowd watch a demo from the back, you can do that on YouTube. Booking opens on the 5th May, and the spots will go quickly. Register your free ticket now at TradeDecoratorLive.co.uk and you’ll get the booking link as soon as it opens.
See You in Bolton
If you’re a professional decorator and you can get to Bolton on the 3rd or 4th of June, come. Tickets are free.
If you can’t make it but you’ve got thoughts on what a trade show should be doing for decorators in 2026, I’d genuinely like to hear them. The whole point of building this stuff is to build it for the people who’ll use it, and you don’tdo that by guessing.
See you in June, hopefully.
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