Last month we held our first ever installer conference in Lancaster, UK. The opportunity was open to all of our Approved installers from level 1 to 3 and we were thrill to have 30 attend from all over the country and we even had one of our US installers fly in especially for the event. Our Technical Manager, Andy Sarson welcomed everyone to the event and thanked for taking time out of busy schedules. Andy is the main point of contact for our installers so everyone was familiar with him.

The idea behind the conference was to update our team of installers on a variety of topics including plans for 2018 and Lincrusta restoration projects which encouraged much conversation. We wanted to hear from our valued installers what they think works well and how we could support them more in future.

We kicked off the day, with an icebreaker – of course. We asked each installer to come up with a word which they think best describes Lincrusta to which we heard everything from unique and incomparable to luxurious and sexy!

Our commercial Manager, Martin, then gave a summary on our plans for 2018 – which are many! With the launch of 4 new designs this spring and a global exhibition schedule there was lots of exciting news to give.

We then got into the nitty gritty of all things Lincrusta with a round table discussion and feedback session. In this session we covered; Marketing & Social media, purchasing & using, support & training, communication and overall experience. We got some fantastic feedback out of this session and we are working to implement some of the changes and suggestions that were made!

After wrapping up the feedback session and a bite to eat we spent the afternoon focusing on Lincrusta restoration kits. This is one area of the company that has seen huge growth in the last couple of years. We’re planning on holding 2 restoration courses this year that will be open to Advanced Lincrusta Installers.

We wrapped up the day with a summary from our UK Project Sales manager, Michael Gardiner, on projects we’ve worked on in the past year which included, Aspinal of London showroom, Jamavar Mayfair and Patara Knightsbridge.

We finished off the day with a fantastic meal at Quite Simply French in Lancaster (where they happen to have Lincrusta on the bar front, see here). We toasted to our wonderful relationship with the installers and the future of Lincrusta with a glass, or two, of champagne and enjoyed a delicious 3 course meal.

We began early the following day, splitting the group into two smaller groups. One to take to our offices for a look through our historic archives and the other to show round the Lincrusta Factory. It was a great opportunity for us to share our archives with the installers and many of them found it interesting when they spotted existing designs they’ve installed in 80 year old books! They had around 45 mins at the office and then we took group one to the factory for their chance to tour the factory and brought group 2 back to the office.

Once both groups had had the chance to experience both sides of the business we met up again at the Hotel for lunch and a presentation before saying goodbye!

Before the conference we asked the installers to submit photos of their Lincrusta projects so we could award what we felt was the best Lincrusta project! The prize went to Matthew Evans, of Welsh Heritage décor for his installation of Art Nouveau in a hallway, on a curved wall and up a staircase.

From everyone at Lincrusta, we would like to thank all of the installers who managed to take time out of their busy schedules to attend, for choosing to come on this exciting journey with us and for being as passionate about Lincrusta as we are! We’re already looking forward to Lincrusta Approved Installer conference 2019!

For any information on becoming an approved Lincrusta installer, please contact Andy Sarson on andy.sarson@lincrusta.com. For any other enquiries please email Katie.hodgson@lincrusta.com.

Originally published 23.04.18