The Natural Stone Show returned to the ExCeL exhibition centre this month (March) and lived up to the expectations created by last time\'s record-breaker. In fact, the show has continued to get bigger each time it has been staged as the industry itself has grown. But last time in the show\'s two-yearly cycle it clocked up an extra 30% of sold space. This time a more modest 7% was literally squeezed into the same hall size by making the aisles narrower. The show was a week later in the month than it has been previously and as we went to press the attendance numbers were still being verified to remove duplications and re-entries, but the organisers were confident they would match last time\'s ABC-audited figure of more than 5,000.

Judging by the accounts of exhibitors there was a reasonable turn-out by the architectural and design community interested to see what the stone industry has to offer them, as well as from the stone industry itself wanting to keep abreast of the latest developments. Being an international industry, there was a strong showing by overseas exhibitors, not least the still rapidly growing Chinese and Indian stone producers. But two of the UK quarriers - Lambs and Wessex Dimensional Stone - flew the Union Flag on their stands to emphasise their heritage.