Gift and merchandise supplier Nemesis Now has added a string of new licences to its bow for 2020.
The Fenton business specialises in the design, manufacture and distribution of fantasy and gothic giftware, as well as official merchandise for a host of popular rock bands and television shows.
Following a successful last 12 months – where it invested more than £250,000 and won licences to produce merchandise for rock legends AC/DC, Judas Priest and Ghost – it has now expanded its range of products even further for its Motorhead, Iron Maiden and Rick and Morty collections.
It has also welcomed new licences to the business for heavy metal band Slipknot, rock legends KISS and the Original Stormtrooper series.
The new additions have seen Nemesis Now release a range of polyresin tankards, shot glasses and goblets as well as figurines and bottle holders which have been created using the company’s state-of-the-art 3D printing technology.
Alan Burgess, marketing manager at Nemesis Now, said: “We work with some big licences such as Game of Thrones, AC/DC, Judas Priest and Terminator 2.
“Licences are very important to us and now we want to broaden our scope in that area even more.
“We want to continue to expand all of our product ranges going forward, but we will be focusing on new licences in the future because they do very well for us as a business.”
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Managing director Nick Chadwick added: “Last year our business saw some massive technological advancements and some poignant additions to our extensive licences collections, adding AC/DC, Judas Priest and Ghost to our repertoire, where we worked closely with the licensing teams and the bands themselves.
“Looking to the future, we are soon to launch merchandise for some of the biggest bands in the world, including Slipknot and KISS.”
Nick added: “Having a plethora of interesting products is one thing but without our experienced fleet of employees Nemesis Now wouldn’t be the well-oiled machine that it is today.
“A company cannot grow without having dedicated and supported staff, so we know the value of our employees.”
Nemesis Now’s new collections – for Slipknot and KISS – will be available to buy from May.
They were officially launched at which is taking place at the NEC in Birmingham until Thursday.
Other exhibitors at the event include Burslem pottery firm Moorland Pottery which is celebrating its best ever year in business.
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Director Jon Plant said: “Our financial year ends in April and already we have had our best ever year after seeing around sales increase by about 20 per cent.
“A lot of that has come on the back of our oatcake gin which we launched this time last year.
“The gin alone has brought more traffic to our website and to our shop and now we are looking to develop our Stokie brand range to other items in the coming months.”
Jon added: “Other products which have been doing very well for us recently are our bespoke mugs which come in our ‘My heart belongs to’ and ‘My happy place’ designs.
“Our unique selling point here has been that customers only have to order a minimum of 16 mugs which means they are proving really popular with small, independent businesses all across the country.”
Trentham-based Dimbleby Ceramics is also in attendance at this year’s Spring Fair.
The company – which is run by Mathew Dimbleby and his wife Rachel – was showcasing its new bird range of mugs.
Mathew said: “The biggest challenge for us is deciding which new trends to tap into and which products to drop from our range, the last few years we had a big focus on the increasing popularity of gin and prosecco but now we are moving away from that as that starts to phase out.”
Over the next 12 months the company is also looking to expand its increasingly successful pottery throwing courses.
Mathew added: “We have been doing the courses for two years now, we started off with one wheel and now we have four.
“It is getting to the stage now where we are looking at putting another studio in where we can run the courses from; this would mean we could keep the manufacturing and courses separate and expand the amount of courses we could run – and potentially introduce evening workshops as well.”
Pottery-giant Churchill China is using this year’s show to promote its 海角视频-made products.
Retail manager Emily Myatt said: “We are increasing the amount of mugs we make at our Stoke-on-Trent factory and are really giving all of our Made in England products a big push this year.
“We do a huge amount of dinnerware for retail in both our 海角视频 and export markets, but we are also selling more everyday mugs now as we are targeting our independent customers.”