No business like show business

Following this autumn’s Naidex South exhibition in London, Sophie Partridge asks whether big trade shows like this are still of value to disabled customers

It’s that time of year again – nights drawing in, Strictly back on tele, and Naidex South at the ExCel centre in London’s Docklands.  

Ah, Naidex! The provider, in its own words, of “inspiration for anyone affected by disability, special needs, learning difficulties [and] long term conditions including arthritis, diabetes, dementia and autism.”

Such a Noah’s Ark of impairments!

We all remember our first time. I remember mine. It was back in the ’80s on a school trip and one of our mob, recently paralysed, was highly amused at the sight of all the incontinence products.

I don’t recall the show being quite so incontinence-focused on later visits. Last year, wandering around the aisles in that vast space, I found myself drawn as ever to the lights and swirls of the multi-sensory stand.  

Being of somewhat small stature I was interested in child-size travelling seats. With pummels and straps and fluorescent colours, they struck me as the kind of furnishings the witch in Hansel and Gretel would have chosen.

Why do disabled children have to endure such overt therapy? Would a “normal” child ever be put into such a contraption? Metal callipers may be gone, but manufacturers still spell out disability to the world.

A few hundred exhibitors take part in Naidex, making it the place to be if you want to sell to the crip market – or at least the professional crip market. Naidex targets occupational therapists and physiotherapists. They’re the ones, then, with all the purchasing power, not your common-or-garden individual disabled person.

Naidex claims to know what will “inspire” our independence. There’s even a drop-down menu on its website where you can book 30 “free”minutes with an expert who’ll then tell you things you couldn’t possibly know about yourself.

This year’s event in Southern England was tied in with the Greater London authority’s Disability Capital Conference, where delegates could meet Mayor Boris and a fresh crop of Paralympians. Surely, then, there’d be something for everyone – even an old cynic like me!

I had one very good reason to go: I need a new buoyancy aid to help me swim. I always need a new buoyancy aid. But here’s the point: I’ve been buying the same style buoyancy aid for the last 20 odd years.  They’re always blue, always made in Mexico, always styled like a boxing helmet, always pricey, and never especially comfy. Yet they’re the only product of its kind that lets me float like a butterfly in water! I’ve yet to find another consumer choice. And, as it turned out, Naidex South 2011 didn’t produce one.

Disability manufacturing is like Groundhog Day. Not much changes. It’s such a yawn to read how every product “was created after lengthy consultation with users”.

What we want is a range of products for people who don’t have loads of money but do live independent lives, not in care homes with flashy, high-tech equipment. Unfortunately, disability is a niche market and the producer rules.  

They try to make things a bit sexier but the choice is still limited, and there’s always a clash between what the professionals recommend and what punters actually want.

Until we can pop into “Commodes R Us” or order a kettle-tipper online from Amazon, disability products will always be over-priced because they’re not subject to normal market forces. And you know what? I suspect most manufacturers like it better that way.