It’s the last day at Ipex Towers for show director Trevor Crawford.

I take my hat off to him (and his team) for making Ipex 2014 happen despite the sort of setbacks that would have made many people run screaming from the building.

But my hat is doffed especially to Trev. Because I for one would have said “stuff this for a game of soldiers” and have gone and done something else long ago, probably around the time Heidelberg dropped its bombshell about not going to Ipex.

Even though I spent a chunk of my career trying to do my very best to make Trevor unsuccessful, when he was publisher of a rival stable of print mags many moons back, I have to admire the man.

He has, like David Moyes, been squeezed by both sides during this Ipex cycle.

One can but imagine the internal conversations at Informa, which shelled out an eight-figure sum for Ipex eight years ago.

Unlike Moyes you wouldn’t know it when you look at his face.

If we as an industry could bottle Trevor’s positivity and innate cheerfulness, his bouncebackability if you like, and ability to put adversity behind him, it would surely be a best seller.

He found his forte in organising big events, so I guess he will find a new industry – perhaps one with more money to play with than print has at present – to deploy those special skills.

Although I am minded of his departure and then return to Ipex in the early part of this century. So perhaps we’ll see him back in this industry – one that he undoubtedly loves despite everything that’s happened over the past couple of years – in one form or another.

Was this the last Ipex? The jury is out.

But I hope it isn’t the last that we in print see of Trev.

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