- Price:
- £18.00
- Rating:
- 2
Reviewed by: newwithhashtags
Summary:
I visited the Spirit of Christmas at Olympia, London for the first time on the 9th November, 2013. I was looking forward to feeling festive and buying lots of little Christmas presents. Tickets cost £18 a piece, but, in my opinion, weren’t worth half of that. Find out why.
The most festive stall at the Spirit of Christmas was to the left as soon as you enter Olympia. It did help set the festive mood, in addition to the couple of giant presents hanging from the ceiling, but I was left disappointed at the small amount of other Christmas content. There were a few stalls with baubles, but other than that it was mainly stalls selling mugs, cushions and cashmere jumpers. It’s a bit annoying because I went to the exhibition in search of Christmas presents and ideas, but left feeling uninspired and empty-handed.
To quote my sister, Christmas is all about children, but there weren’t many stalls to cater for them, or even general stocking fillers for adults. There were lots of stalls selling childrens clothes which looked like they had been made in the 1920s, and although the items were often very pretty and/or well-crafted, the prices were far too high. With exhibitions like this I reckon most people impulse buy, but £50 for a cushion cover or £18 for a pair of socks is simply absurd and unjustifiable.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I like splashing out on nice things, and I appreciate that many of the items were made in Britain and with the finest materials, but even then very few things were screaming ‘BUY ME!’. The general feel of the exhibition was pretentious, overpriced and repetitive; many of the stalls were selling the same or very similar things which made it a bit boring. And seeing as the tickets were £18 each I would have thought there would be some small affordable pieces, but these were few and far between.
I think the show would do well by placing all similar stalls together instead of dotting them around randomly; it would make finding nice things difficult. Also more festive items and decorations wouldn’t go amiss, and definitely more stocking fillers and affordable presents. Overall, as you can probably tell I was disappointed with the Spirit of the Christmas and wouldn’t bother going back.
