Within days of this year’s National Buying Group (NBG) conference and AGM being announced, the event is already sold out.

The conference, which is based on the theme of Building Our Brands, will be held at the Celtic Manor Hotel from 8-10 November.

The event will bring together NBG’s merchant partners and suppliers for a programme of business and leisure activities, and a full scale exhibition with 127 exhibitors, as well as the formal proceedings of the AGM.

The event is set to be well supported by both merchants and suppliers with more than 450 delegates attending, including 150 owners, principles, and managing directors of the 82 NBG merchant partners, and nearly 300 representatives from NBG suppliers.

“This year’s theme is Building Our Brands because supporting and growing our partners’ brands is in our DNA,” said NBG managing director Nick Oates. “We believe that NBG is particularly focused on supporting and developing the top building products brands, a commitment not always shared by other businesses more focused on their own label programmes.”

In addition to the AGM business and exhibition, this year will see a new feature at the conference, a Supplier Summit. This is a fast-paced briefing where suppliers will be kept abreast of the latest NBG developments and innovations, along with plans for further improving the organisation’s operations in line with feedback from an extensive supplier survey carried out earlier in the year.