The APF Exhibition is the UK’s largest forestry, woodland, arboriculture, firewood, fencing, trees and timber trade show. As APF 2024 draws ever closer, its exhibition secretary offers Forestry Journal readers an exclusive insight into how preparations are coming along.

AS I write this there are just nine weeks to go until we open the gates for APF 2024 on Thursday, 19 September. Despite having been exhibition secretary for 30 years I still get a tingle of excitement as I see the show coming together and the expectation that it will be bigger and better than previously. That is an easy phrase to use, but we have without doubt more events and competitions than ever before.

After APF 2022 someone commented on social media that the show was a bit boring and there weren’t many demonstrations to watch. I am not quite sure if the person concerned had actually made it to the show, but I guarantee they won’t be disappointed this time.

The demo circuit is now 95-per-cent full. That is over two miles of working machinery. Bookings continue to come in daily, so a sell-out is on the cards.
For the demo committee, the work is really ramping up with a huge amount of detail to be dealt with, such as orders and quantities of tracking, fencing, cabins, PA systems and more finalised. Many of the items are probably things you will never notice. Do you know we put up over two miles of road cones and rope to demarcate the Countryside Stewardship strips around the edges of the site to stop exhibitors driving on them? We work very closely with Ragley Estate to make sure we don’t blot our copybook and I would like to thank Charles and Andrew for their ongoing patience and help. Andrew is the farm manager and tends to get bombarded with questions at this stage of planning. These range from “can we dig up your main farm access road to install a culvert for our fibre optic cabling?” to “can we dig three 12-ft-deep pits in your nice field to put up our climbing poles?” to probably the most unusual one to date, “can we paint your grass?”

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Jemma, our chief co-ordinator, is doing a great job designing and co-ordinating our build schedule, working closely with Mat, our assistant chief co-ordinator to ensure we will have the materials, machines and labour on site for the build. Greg and Eric, our safety officers, have to wade through over 300 risk assessments to check suitability – and you thought the one you did for your job yesterday was a pain!

We start the build on 9 September, but first up are our climbing poles. We need to take advantage of good ground conditions so we can get a crane onto site without the need for tracking. The 100-ft-long poles are being loaded, brought to site and installed on 31 July. They will make their journey up from Longleat. My apologies if you get stuck behind the lorry on the M5. Their loading and installation will be filmed and we will post this on our social media shortly afterwards. If Mat didn’t have enough on his plate installing the poles, Husqvarna requested a whole tree be installed in its demo area so it can show its new powered ascender in action.

The tree will be about 30-ft tall, complete with branches, so pruning can be demonstrated as well. I think sometimes exhibitors ask us for things just to test us.

If you were wondering what there is to see and do at APF 2024 then read on. The Husqvarna World 25 m pole-climbing championships, the A W Jenkinson and Tilhill European chainsaw carving championships, the UK Forwarder Driving championships sponsored by Richard Court Engineering and Coombe Forestry, the British championships for speed fencing and traditional post-and-wire fencing sponsored by McVeigh Parker, the UK team tree-climbing championships sponsored by Teufelberger and Pfanner, the UK lumberjack championships, the World Log to Leg pole-lathe championships, horse logging and the traditional woodland crafts area with over 30 traditional crafts on show from coracles to charcoal, clogs to canoes, willow weaving to wheelwrighting, plus hazel, oak and willow basket-making.

Entries for these competitions are now open. So if you reckon your climbing skills and speed are good or want to test your pole-climbing, fencing or forwarder skills against the best, send your entry in now. Forms can be found in the competition and events page of our website. There are some fantastic prizes on offer. The prize fund for the pole-climbing alone is over £10,000.

If you want to try tree climbing and test your head for heights then you can. The Great Big Tree Climbing Company is running have-a-go sessions using rope and harness. Try your hand at axe throwing, pole-lathe turning or extracting timber with a timber horse. Try the Husqvarna chainsaw snedding simulator or catch up on topical seminars. I am willing to bet that no-one can say the show is genuinely boring after seeing all of that.

Advance ticket and camping sales are excellent, ahead of where we were in 2022. Book your tickets online now to take advantage of the discounts. Tickets will be available on the gate priced £25. Can I give a word of warning please? Recently on our Facebook page was a message from a lady offering to sell some unwanted advance tickets she had bought online, claiming we had given her more than she ordered. The wording and language was strange and her name didn’t feature in our ticket sales database, so we challenged her and funnily enough the post disappeared almost immediately. Please beware of ticket scams. As our advance tickets are printed at home, someone could sell photocopies. Each ticket has a unique QR code and can only be scanned once, so the first person through the gate is fine. If the same code is tried again it will be rejected and if you are the unlucky person with the ticket you bought second hand you will have to pay again.

Please be warned.

I would like to end this month’s diary with some sad news and personal memories. My old friend and colleague Roger Fitter MBE died this month aged 88 (full obituary here). Roger was the very first APF exhibition director and it was his drive and enthusiasm that developed the first APF National Forestry Demonstration held at Longleat Estate in 1976 into what it is today. Roger served as exhibition director until 2002 and afterwards continued to help us every two years, taking great pride in the accuracy of his marking out of our site and car parks. No fancy surveying kit or GPS for Roger – he preferred his trusty measuring wheel and a ball of baler twine.

It was Roger who appointed me as exhibition secretary back in 1994, so he has to take the blame for that. It was a privilege to work with Roger for so many years and I was in awe of his energy and stamina. They broke the mould after they made Roger. A real old-school forester and gentleman. I will miss him.

For more information on APF 2024 visit 
www.apfexhibition.co.uk, email Ian at info@apfexhibition.co.uk or call 
01428 723545.