Last Wednesday, fair organiser Expertise Events announced the Autumn Jewellery Fair would take place in Melbourne from April 30 to May 1, 2011.
Within 48 hours there had been more than 20 bookings and, according to Expertise managing director Gary Fitz-Roy, although it was early days, “the new event has been welcomed by suppliers.”
Fitz-Roy said the booking figures showed a need to fill a long-standing gap in the jewellery industry calendar.
The Melbourne fair will be Australia’s third official JAA jewellery fair, joining August’s JAA International Jewellery Fair in Sydney and March’s JAA Australian Jewellery Fair in Brisbane.
The Melbourne fair is being billed as “a boutique event”, operating with a simpler format to the existing fairs.
“We’re not trying to replicate what we already have in the marketplace... I propose a different style of event designed to control costs and support the needs of the southern states,” Fitz-Roy said last week, at the time of the announcement.
The decision to launch the fair was made after Fitz-Roy realised a large portion of the jewellery industry was not being catered for.
“On review of the visitor data from the last Brisbane Fair, I observed that very few retailers travelled from Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia... from a buyer point of view they are not being serviced,” he said.
Expertise Events will be advertising the event in the coming months.
Exhibitors interested in registering – and retailers interested in attending – can find out more from the Expertise Events
website.
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