Disco ’76, the NADJ-run trade exhibition scheduled for September 6/7/8, at London’s Bloomsbury Centre Hotel, may now take place under different auspices.
Ben Cree, NADJ organiser, last week confessed to a meeting of exhibitors that their Disco ’76 deposits had already been used for other unrelated NADJ activities, and that he had been unable to pay the hotel its advance booking charge to confirm the venue. It is understood that the Centre Hotels group have cancelled the NADJ’s booking.
Undaunted, Cree is now looking for a new London venue, and says: “the NADJ is definitely running a Disco ’76 show in London.”
Naturally concerned at this turn of events, the exhibiting manufacturers have passed a vote of no confidence in Cree’s handling of Disco ’76, and are planning to mount the exhibition under another name and with a new sponsor.
As a temporary measure until a new sponsor can be found, the September 6 and 7 dates at the Bloomsbury Centre are being held as a provisional booking by Roger Squire, the Disco Centre chief.
In a message to manufacturers, Squire says “exhibitors should not panic, as the exhibition will be reconstituted one way or another, although at this stage it’s uncertain under whose sponsorhip.”
It is possible that a committee of five or six manufacturers will be formed to organise the mounting of the exhibition, and there is talk of co-operation between competing firms to help the disco industry as a whole.
Under the new plans, it appears that deposits already paid to NADJ for exhibition space will be honoured by the trade consortium as if paid to them, but from this point on all other intending exhibitors must be sure that they know for which exhibition they are booking. Continue reading “July 31, 1976: problems with NADJ’s “Disco ’76” trade exhibition”
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