Thank you all for reading my article! My apologies to Multiflight, who did have a stand and I have removed from the comment in the article (I missed their stand, it must have been significantly scaled down compared with their 2011 one...)
A past exhibitor walking the floor is not a commitment to an exhibition, it's a toe-in-the-water by those who thought the move to ExCeL might not work. The acid test is whether the same people are still walking the floor in Amsterdam or they commit to a stand. I'm not anti-ExCeL, btw, but it's a pain to get to for most people in the UK unless you happen to be staying at a nearby (probably very expensive) hotel or you love standing up on public transport.
The much larger number of aircraft shown at Duxford made it a better place to visit for many. Do we want an exhibition with less and less aircraft exhibits? Perhaps we do? An airframe purchase is a generally a long-term project, so it's not like someone pitches up (haha), sees a helicopter they like and places a deposit.
The test of success at ExCeL London will be shown in Amsterdam where there are likely to be less airframes shown as everything needs to come in/out by road.
How many other cities/countries will Helitech rotate through before it comes back to the UK?