The GHA’s inaugural July Home and Giving gift trade fair is set to commence as planned on 4-7 July 2009 , despite the competitors wishing it would go away.
The announcement of this event last year obviously sparked fear into the opposition, who have been desperately claiming reasons why the failing September fair is a better time for the annual second Sydney Gift & Homewares trade fair.
Importers have slowly began to embrace the July Fair for exhibiting as they now realise that they can order the manufacture of new goods as a result of orders taken in July and still get them into their warehouse in time for the main Christmas season. Whereas after the August trade fair it simply wont quite work, because retailers hate the uncertainty of stock availability and don’t want to order if they cant be sure of getting the stock.
The old September Gift Fair was always a trade fair where Australian retailers only expected to take whatever was left over of new season designs and had to simply take what stock was available. September 2008 was a very quite fair and no doubt will deter some exhibitors from exhibiting again in September when they can choose to try the new July Sydney fair at Homebush.
Despite attempts by Reed to change their exhibition dates, the Homebush July Home and Giving Fair has ended up on the same weekend as their Brisbane Gift fair which may cause the demise of the Brisbane fair. Brisbane gift fair has been slowing dying over the past 4 years as the interstate exhibitors have not been making enough sales there. Many exhibitors had already sworn it was their last time after disastrous results in Brisbane in July 2008.
The Survival of the July Home and Giving fair in Sydney at Homebush is already guaranteed by the number of GHA members who have now contracted to exhibit there long term (and locked in massive savings). However whilst GHA’s exhibitors expect the July Fair to start small, they really expect it to simply grow and grow, as it will ultimately mean many NSW retailers will not have to travel interstate to the August fair and also because its already correctly promoted as the first fair of the season to expose all of the new seasons designs.
With the retailer population base that live in driving distance of Sydney being significantly higher than Melbourne. There is now no reason for Melbourne gift fair to be a significantly better Fair. Melbourne’s sudden growth in exhibitors in recent years is really only about August being much better timing than September. Well hey!, July is even better for the reasons outlined above and if your flying into Melbourne it is just as easy to fly in to Sydney.
With the NSW government’s plans to double the size of the main exhibition hall at Homebush and move all exhibitions away from Darling Harbor in favor of Convention space there, the Homebush venue with its large car park space (currently Free for Home and Giving fairs), and major transport hub, will be the most important trade fair exhibition in the longer term.
Well established retailers know that if they order popular new designs at the Sydney July Home and Giving fair, the planned stock levels of the exhibitor will be irrelevant, because FINALLY, exhibitors can restock in time to deliver orders for the main Christmas and summer season.
