XPO Exhibitions Wins Prestigious Industry Awards

Press Release

Friday 29 November, 2013

XPO Exhibitions Wins Prestigious Industry Awards

XPO Exhibitions, New Zealand’s largest trade exhibition and event organiser, has just returned from Sydney where they took out two major event category awards at the 2013 Exhibition and Events Australasia Association Awards for Excellence including, Best Trade Show in Australasia (under 10,000m2) and Best NZ Show overall.

XPO’s buildnz | designex was the only New Zealand finalist in the hotly contested Best Trade Show in Australasia category under 10,000m2 – and were up against four entries from three of Australia’s leading exhibition and event organisers with much larger organisational structures and resources.

“Winning these awards has raised our company profile throughout Australasia in a big way,” says XPO managing director Brent Spillane.

“It’s not easy to win over a panel of international judges, but we’ve managed to demonstrate that New Zealand can produce a world-class event.”

Judges said that XPO’s show BuildNZ Designex was “An excellent show by the XPO team. The various promotion and marketing activities carried out by the organiser were excellent and justly rewarded by the overall results achieved,” and added; “Designex 2013 has demonstrated growth over successive years using industry partners and targeted smart marketing.”

“The award is also important to put New Zealand trade shows firmly back on the discussion table for company marketing departments.

“Trade Shows are enjoying an incredible resurgence in popularity in New Zealand,” says Spillane.

“Our growing base of industry visitors and exhibitors is deriving more and more value from their attendance to our shows. If a business is not dedicating a portion of its annual marketing budget to exhibitions in New Zealand, then it’s potentially missing a growing market of targeted customers,” he said.

The New Zealand trade event and exhibition industry is abuzz with innovation, world-first launches and solid expansion, says Spillane.

“We’re embracing technology in a big way evidenced by our data capturing technology, and our format is becoming more and more relevant for industry across our portfolio of exhibition brands. Whilst many may believe that social media and online technology is the out front leader in modern sales and marketing, Auckland based company XPO knows differently.

“People tend to have a preconceived idea that New Zealand is too small to host quality industry exhibitions, but that’s just not true,” says Spillane.

“Many world first innovations are being launched at existing industry events and we estimate hundreds of millions of dollars in trade is happening onsite each year. This win is a signal to the media, marketing and sales industry that the face to face format of exhibitions and events is alive and well here in NZ,” he said.

The future looks bright for the winning event buildnz | designex held in Auckland earlier this year. The success of that event has resulted in the launch of Canterbury buildnz | designex due to run July 31st – August 2nd 2014 - already 90% booked in Christchurch’s largest expo venue.

In addition, XPO’s portfolio has increased to 13 brands through its recent acquisition of Hayley Media Exhibitions as it continues to focus on growth and development of its industry events portfoliothat includes three separate New Zealand Gift & Homewares Fairs, Engineering Machinery & Electronics Exhibition (EMEX), Foodtech Packtech, The NZ Food Innovation Showcase, buildnz | designex (Auckland and Canterbury), MyBiz Expo, The National Safety Show, MHL (Materials Handling & Logistics) Show, SouthMACH and the South Island Hospitality Show.

Finalists included:

Best Trade Show Under 10,000m2

Integrate
Diversified Exhibitions

Security Exhibition and Conference
Diversified Exhibitions

BuildNZ I Designex
XPO Exhibitions Ltd

Assistive Technology Suppliers Australia (ATSA) Daily Living Expo
Interpoint Events

Entech
Exhibitions and Trade Fairs

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