2005 Australian - New Zealand Trade Show Summary!
Story posted October 1, 2005

The 2005 Australian - New Zealand Trade Show was held on Friday September 9, 2005 in the Australian Pavilion inside the Australian Festival Grounds. The event was a brainchild of ANZACC Vice President Mark Allen with Peter Beare (Nashville) and Jude Furniss (Houston) being appointed to administrate the event. A partnership was established with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce to help local promotions and to connect our trade participants with Nashville & Tennessee based companies. The Trade Show provided an industry focused event that connected Australian and New Zealand products and services with Tennessee based companies.

The Trade Show attracted Australian/New Zealand based companies from 3 distinct industries - Food, Wine, and Travel. The Nashville Chamber Of Commerce provided a comprehensive lists of food companies & restaurants in the Middle Tennessee region that were marketed to directly. Pacific Wine Partners assisted in notifying their distributors and associated liquor stores about the event and products that were on show. To attract Tennessee based travel industry the Australian Festival participated in the annual Tennessee Travel Show that is held each July in Nashville. Tennessee Travel Agents were targeted with the specific aim on educating them on the wide variety of Australian & New Zealand products that are available for the Tennessee travel consumer. These three industries combined to showcase over 50 Australian and New Zealand based products.

The Trade Show was emcee'd by Rod Grljusich, Sportscaster from Western Australian, and consisted of expert speakers from Australian & New Zealand based companied in the US. Approximately 150 attendees made up the attendees numbers. Highlights of the trade show included the very popular Chocolate Graphics Booth, the extensive range at the Austrade Booth, the humorous and informative talk by Australian Bakery Cafe Owner, Mark Allen, and some excellent industry focused talks by Kylie Hagreaves, Austrade, LA, Sally Osbourne, Pacific Wine Partner's of California, and Jillian Burrows of Down Under Answers. Lively Australian music by Paul Killingly and a cameo performance by Lewis Burns who wowed the attendees with the haunting sounds of the didgeridoo. With a glass of Hardy's, some great Aussie & Kiwi food, in beautiful Centennial Park with the the Parthenon as a back setting there was not a nicer place to do business in Nashville on this given day!

A big thanks to all our sponsors, expert speakers, attendees and in particular Austrade who really supported the event and helped in making the event diverse and extensive with many new product options. Special thanks for FOX Network, our television sponsor who provided television spots for both the Australian Bakery Cafe (Atlanta) and the Down Under Bakery from New York on their Tennessee Mornings show which reaches a demographic of over 850,000 households in Middle Tennessee, North Alabama, and Southern Kentucky.