Mind Body Soul Expo

The Mind Body Soul Expo was held over three days at Alexandra Palace in London. The Shiatsu Society had a stand with four practitioners on the first two days and five on the last day. There was a lovely atmosphere and everybody worked very well together.

As co-ordinator of the event, I arrived about two hours early on Friday to set up the stand and build relationships with neighbouring exhibitors, which proved very useful. The stand was set apart from the other manual therapy booths, on a corner next to a coffee wagon which had an eating area in front of it. We were able to make the most of this position by using a table and chairs from the cafe as a waiting area. We gave chair treatments of 15 min and 30 min duration. During the course of the weekend we had to resort to giving treatments on the normal chairs we had borrowed from the cafe because we were so busy.

Each day brought a different kind of visitors to the Shiatsu Society stand.

On Friday, the public was mainly interested to know about Shiatsu and what it can offer. The response was very favourable, judging by the feedback and the interest it generated.

Saturday was a very busy day giving treatments, having to turn many people away. We did not stop all day and our timetable was fully booked before lunch.

On Sunday we had an extra pair of hands and we changed our approach to allow more time to speak to the clients. This proved invaluable as several important connections were made. There was a lot of interest from the visitors in finding practitioners in their area.

Over the weekend, we treated more than a hundred and thirty people, gave out a lot of leaflets with information about Shiatsu and booklets with the lists of practitioners. It was a big success and potentially good relationships were made.