Guillaume Prot – Director of the Maison&Objet Show

Maison&Objet

More than a fair, Maison & Objet is the focal point for all professionals. Design, home, art.  Guillaume Prot, director of the Maison & Objet fair, tells us more about the news, trends and initiatives developed.

What’s new about this year’s Maison&Objet? What special initiatives have you developed?

A key point to note is the renewed confidence of brands in our home universe to come back to the fairs. For its third post-pandemic edition, Maison&Objet will once again attract more than 2000 brands next September. It was very important for us to help companies regain confidence in trade shows, the desire to exhibit and to meet their customers in person at this event. Until now, we were the only international lifestyle trade fair that welcomed a large number of international visitors after the pandemic. Since then, other major events such as the “Salone del Mobile” in Milan proved the dynamics and interest that trade fairs can generate. Visitors once again seem to be very interested in coming to our events.

For September, we are adding many initiatives to give visitors the opportunity to discover more and more new products and find inspiration within the fair. For example, the launch of “Future on Stage” will reward remarkable young companies in decoration, design and lifestyle. The first three winners will be presented in the “Future on Stage” space at the entrance to Hall 5A of the fair.

In addition to this, we are creating for the first time the “Spotlight” areas in the Objet sectors, which allow visitors to easily discover a selection of new creative companies. This is both a demonstration of Maison&Objet‘s capacity to federate young creation and a way for our visitors to optimise their searches and their discovery of new exhibitors with dedicated and identifiable spaces.

Finally, we will welcome more than 500 new companies to the fair, which demonstrates the dynamic nature of the home market and the attractiveness of the fair for companies who want to reveal their creations and start a business at a fair.

Other initiatives included the restarting of our cycle of international networking events and the mobilisation of our ambassadors and representatives abroad in order to boost our community. New York, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Madrid, Milan and Tel Aviv are just some of the cities we visited to present the highlights of the September fair and to map out the future of the fair.

In terms of innovation, what sets Maison&Objet apart from other fairs in the industry?

Maison&Objet is a major event for discovering the major trends in our markets. These trends are shown both through the offer proposed by our exhibitors, who help our visitors to refine their vision, and through our different spaces which also contribute to this discovery. For example, the “Designer of the Year”, in this case Cristina Celestino, who will be presenting her ” Palais Exotique ” in our Mariage Frères restaurant, or the ” What’s New ” areas designed by our trend setters, as well as our ” Talks ” program.

Finally, the experimental side of the fair is a very important point, as we want our buyers to have the most pleasant and varied experience of their visit, and always keep them in the mix of discovering new products and suppliers, major market trends and surprises through scenographic, sometimes immersive areas, which are all surprising and fun breaks during their day.

Finally, our “off” event, Paris Design Week, reached a record level of participants this year with nearly 400 addresses in Paris, to enrich the experience of visiting the fair with a programme that will take place in the city with very varied thematic itineraries.

More than the impact on the local economy, what do you think will be the greater global impact of the MOM platform, an exclusive creation from Maison&Objet?

Our MOM platform was launched 6 years ago and its impact has been great in the last few years. Many companies who were not prepared for the 2020 scenario have used the platform to keep in touch with the Maison&Objet community. We supported these interactions through many online activities like the Digital Fairs (in September 2020) or thematic Digital Days highlighting specific sectors or types of companies on the platform.

Based on the very good results recorded on MOM, we have committed the platform to major developments that will complete the online experience and bring new services to our subscribers by the end of the year.

What is the balance, but also what are your expectations for this year that is still half way through?

For the moment the results are very positive, the show is gradually recovering its pre-pandemic position, and we feel the strong attachment of our community to the event.

September will probably be a new step in terms of visitor volume, which is linked to the volume of brands, definitely on the rise next September.

In the middle of the year, we are looking forward to the January 2023 session, which will also be full of surprises. Many brands have already confirmed their participation (sales have been launched since June), but more will be revealed at the September edition.