The Sugatsune UK team is fresh back from our trade show doubleheader at Futurebuild and KBB. It was a fantastic few days and a great way to kick off the exhibition season in style, with bumper crowds at both events.
In fact, KBB organisers confirmed that they’d had their biggest turnout from the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom trade in 10 years. And that chimed with our experience in Birmingham, as we enjoyed record visitor numbers at our stand. Thank you to everyone who came along and said hi!
Futurebuild in London was no less busy. This event is always a highlight of the built environment industry’s calendar, consistently setting an exciting and engaging agenda focusing on innovation.
Welcoming acquaintances old and new to our trade stands is always a pleasure and an honour. Our team was kept busy throughout the combined seven days that the two events ran for. But it’s a priceless opportunity for us to showcase our product range in person, demonstrate some of our latest innovations, and just as importantly, get feedback from people in the trade.
Overwhelmingly positive
Across both shows, the feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive, with certain products attracting particular attention. It was very pleasing, for example, to receive so much praise for our HES1 and HES2 concealed hinges, and from so many different quarters.
The HES range has been one of our proudest innovations ever since we launched it. Based on a fundamental redesign of the entire concealed hinge concept, HES hinges were developed to be suitable for interior doors. We did this by doing away with the pivot arm characteristic of most concealed hinges. That can be mounted out of sight on the inside of a cabinet, but not on the frame of an interior door.
Almost from the moment we launched the original HES3D, we’ve expanded the range so that it now serves everything from the smallest cabinets to the heaviest interior doors. The HES1 adds very slim and flush-to-wall doors to that list, making for an exciting ‘hidden door’ option.
But across both Futurebuild and KBB, it was the HES2 that drew the most positive comments. A surface mount solution that avoids the need to mortise the door frame, delegates at both shows spotted the simple retro-fitting possibilities it opens up.
The HES2 is a multiple award winner. But for us, it’s even more of an affirmation getting a positive response from would-be users.
Speaking of retro-fitting, this was also a regular topic of conversation around our MFU1200 range. Another multi-award winning product, the MFU1200 is a sliding door system that features no-handle push opening, smooth damper-controlled motion and flush closing for pristine effect – another ‘hidden door’ candidate.
But again, what visitors to our stands at KBB and Futurebuild were most intrigued by was the simplified installation. The MFU1200 centres around a single top rail, with no pockets, recesses, bottom rail or floor grooves to bother with. That makes it an excellent option for updating and modernising any existing sliding or pocket door systems,
The HES2 and MFU1200 stood out as the most popular products across the two shows. But something else that didn’t escape our notice was the amount of attention our ALT-ST pocket door range got. We’ve noticed interest in pocket doors steadily increasing in recent years. The ALT-ST range provides solutions for cabinets rather than interior doors. Rather than recesses in walls, the ALT-ST uses a hinge system that swings cabinet doors ‘out-and-in’ so they tuck away parallel to the cabinet sides.
Designed as a modular system for large cabinet arrays where you might want to alternate between closed and open doors for display, the ALT-ST is suitable for small cabinet doors weighing under 20kg. This is pretty unique in the market, and delegates commented on the flexibility and the low cost.
All in all, it was an excellent week and again we extend our thanks to the show organisers and to everyone we met at both events. We’re already looking forward to returning to Futurebuild next year, while KBB will be back in two years, already confirmed for 1-4 March 2026 again at the NEC Birmingham.
In the meantime, there will be plenty more chances to see us out and about at trade shows throughout the rest of 2024. Look out for announcements on our website or newsletter.
