 If you're attending or have attended the 2008 London Golf Show tell us your experiences. Tell us whom you met, what equipment you tried, what you bought. Did it satisfy your enthusiasm or could the organisers have done better? Your opinions count so don't hold back. ED
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 Will do and look forward to the day out in London so if the golf show is naff the City will be good!
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Have been the last few times and to be honest, the first one was really good but after that it got a bit samey; too many Travel Companies, not enough Manufacturers or products. However, there seem to be more Club companies going to be there this time, and I'm quite looking forward to it again.
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I thought it was a useless trip to London just for golf show and luckily had plently of time to look around London as well. Most of the stands were trying to get me to buy a home abroad  for £60,000. Oh yeah we can all afford this can't we with the credit this country has at the moment? There was only one Scotty Cameron putter in the whole show. I was planning on buying one but got none so looking today instead in a pro shop. As for lessons for £2 (donation to Sparks charity) that is not a bad idea and looked okay but I never had one as I'm injured. Overall the show was disappointing!
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 I went on friday and found it much smaller than previous years and lacklustre. Like the earlier post I thought the first year was much the best and it's been downhill from there. Like Kieron I got p*ssed off with being hassled by foreign property vendors. Not too many freebies on offer either apart from wilson! last time i visit.
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 I have to agree with the opinions given so far. Ben and I have been each year and both think that the first was by far the best. This year, there were far too many property and finance stands. I cannot afford a timeshare or whatever you are calling it this year, certainly can't afford to buy something outright and no, not even a foreign holiday. I don't want another credit card either!! We didn't encounter any freebies at all and Ben was particularly disappointed at this on the Callaway stand. He stood and listened to an explanation of why their new ball is better than the HX56, which he uses, saw the guy give 3 punters samples and then turn away. He politely asked whether he could have the same to try and was told they were for custom fit customers only... I thought that the AG shop looked like a cross between Primark and a jumble sale, as its main purpose seemed to be getting rid of all its old stock of clothing. Their prices of just about everything else were not fantastic either. Most of the OEM's were focussed on making sales there and then, to the extent that they were charging £20.00 to enable you to use the range. If you wanted to just demo, you were directed to the AG bays, of which there were only 4. Ben did manage to get a go at a couple of instructional stands, but most of the things that he wanted to have a go on were booked up for hours and neither of us wanted to stay that long. Thanks though to the guy on the Aldila stand who fitted him in to look at some shafts, which was very interesting. Thanks also to the GP guys for their sofas and supplies of vodka and coke/redbull!
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Agree with the above - kudos to the Cleveland guys for offering free fitting - got MagicPlus2's sorted for a driver test with the same guy who did mine last year, so I felt very confident with the results - and then found out his swing speed is higher than mine!!  Kids eh, who'd have 'em? Other than that...smaller but better than last year but not as good as the first one. Agree the AGD comments, real tat for the most part. People we liked - Snake Eyes (top, TOP team), Cleveland (Gary? sorry if not), the nice lady on the Florida holidays stand (y'all), the Q-link people, the GEL putter ladies. People we didn't - the *******s on the TaylorMade stand (£20 to try a club? Take them off the list), the pushy Polaris World types, or at least their financial people, and some American mind coach wittering on at high volume in a whiny voice about Walter Hagen - SHUT UP! And I will never get on one of those vibrating exercise machines ever again in my life.
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You obviously missed to Golf Punk stand then. I think that knowing Dan Owen helped a bit, but their hospitality was much appreciated. Iced vodkas and comfy sofas - the best part of the show for me!
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Freebie tots of Bushmills added a warm glow to the visit and whacking balls in to the Thames in a futile attempt to hit the island green was well worth a couple of quid to charity.
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I thought that i had gone into the place in the sun show by mistake, got fed up with telling people no I don't want to play golf in Hungary, Morocco, or wherever the next big venue is. Eventually found some club manufacturers, £20 required to try a Taylormade, did they miss a trick there when NBike allowed people to try what clubs they wanted to. Not as good as the first time I went, organisers must try harder to get more manufacturers there if they want to get punters to go back
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I attended the golf show on the friday. Luckily i got there early as the queues for the range were only 1 or 2 deep. The boys on the nike and callaway stand were really good. Explained i was in the market for a 3 wood and wanted to really test the different models. The bloke on the taylormade stand was useless. Wanted to charge me 20 notes. "but im not sure i want to buy it" i said..... "well go and try something else" was his reply. Excellent customer service that, doubt i'll buy anything taylormade again because of him. Decided on the SQ2 (rounded) 3w. Into AG we went for the special offer of a free dozen balls. Well if you wanted a square one you were ok, but the rounded one was nowhere to be found..... left the show 3woodless. Overall i had a good day out. But like everyone else i think the organisers missed a trick here. If i was sitting with the organisers i would say double the driving range bays, treble the teaching bays and half the amount of time shares. People are there to try equipment. If we try and we like then we'll buy. So get a good shop going, stock it to capacity and then add some more and do some deals.... knock a 3rd off for the golf show only, give a freebee glove here or there. You'd make a fortune.
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it was my first time in at a London golf show, my last experience was in birmingham several years ago with colin Montgomerie to name a few. I found London more a holiday sell than a golf show. when you see the word 'show' i would have expected talks from tour pros and exhibition shots and demonstrations from them.. I did enjoy my day as I found the nike teaching bays a great help and thanks Kev for your help. I did also pay £2 donation to sparks for another lesson and again £2 for 10mins of a pros time was well worth it..I did enjoy the bushmills stand and visited on several occasions. The family golf simulator was very enjoyable as I nearly had a hole in one on the nearest the pin game, the outdoor water green was also fun and could i get the ball to stick on the green not a chance... I did buy several items which i went especially was looking for. Now let it rain as my new waterproofs are awesome. I felt there wasnt enough try before you buy stands..Ok yes americangolf had there own bays but the queue was taking so long..Ok i did manage to try out a new driver and irons but felt that after waiting half an hour i felt uneasy spending longer than five minutes trying them..For a 'show' i found that the prices were far too close to shop prices and the 'bargains' that were on offer didnt really truly reflect the occasion. OK everyone needs to make a living but a wholesale store like AG didnt offer real bargains and to say that i didnt purchase the holy grail of a driver i tried left me a little flat.. I had free tickets which i had won so i ddint feel that bad but if i had of paid i would have come away feeling a little let down by it all.
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I feel these shows will never please everone and that for every dissenting voice there is is maybe 10 happy silent ones as i was there every day and lots of people looked happy and the AG store was doing great buisness the holiday stands seemed to be getting attention and all the brands were packed in their driving bays. i agree some things could be better and lessons will have been learnt but look what happened to the uk golf show they tried to listen to give people what they said they wanted and it was a disaster.
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 I went on Sunday, the trick show was okay but I have seen it before. Was thinking of getting a TaylorMade driver custom fitted but the £20 kept me from doing it. The idea of having all the manufacturers next to each other is good though. Was disappointed that there weren't many stands with clever new products but there certainly was no lack of time share or golf holiday stands (why not move that next door to 'a place in the sun'?). I thought I got a good deal on a Mizuno Twister III bag at AG because I bought towards the end of the show on Sunday and they wanted to get rid of stuff - it was down by 20%. When I got home I looked at the AG website - same price  I don't think I will come back next year
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 Although I did post a generally disappointed view of the LGS in the other thread, I did get me a "bargain". Well it's a bargain compared to the web price....I bought some of those Turf Tiles from the Purestrike guys. I was actually looking for something like this to practice putting at home, and they definately do put well lilke a decent club green.
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 Keep the comments and ideas coming ... believe it or not exhibition organisers DO want to know what makes a good Show for our visitors. Support from the golfing industry/suppliers is the biggest hurdle when developing a Show .. so your comments help us to demonstrate that there is a demand to test, try and compare different products whilst having a good day out ! For what it is worth, (and I don't organise The London Golf Show), I would say it was pretty good actually .... and congratulations to the modest chap at PA Sports who got a hole-in-one on the floating island and as for trying the Gel putter ... two 20ft putts in a row swiftly followed by the parting of cash ... just need to try it on a real green now !
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I want some 
. that machines looked stupid and laughed as I walked past sorry if it was you 
