Thread: Brisbane Wood Show 2018

The hardest part for bricks & mortar stores is their overheads are so much higher than internet suppliers.

B&M stores need display areas, salespeople, stock on hand and the bigger the store ...the higher the utility costs such as electricity, rates etc. They also need to be close to population centres.

Internet stores can be run from warehouses in cheaper rental areas.

Went today as a newbie I would say there wasn't much there. Two real woodworking stores that offered great tools, pricing was dearer than online. Bought some tools probably spent about $80 overall. Could have spent more as I wanted a small router plane and a marking gauge. Nothing really there apart from a $300 large vertias plane.

Some great skills and shows by the people who where demonstrating. That's what's missing more expertise on show. Can see why it's dying...people want to be inspired and buy tools to help them on the journey.

Most bargains I had was from the Ipswich stall buying gifts for the missus and my son.

Overall would only go for the Ipswich stall and probably buy the odd timber piece.

Definitely not inspiring for the beginner.


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Maybe they should look at moving the show to the edge of Brisbane, Samford would be a good spot for it. Turn it into an actual festival, food trucks & entertainment etc. I ummed and arrrredd about going to the show today, but decided against after seeing the exhibitor list. Turns out thankfully i didn't attend. The internet can't be held responsible for the death of a show, its a tool like any other just have to work out how to use it. Online shopping is great but when you don't know what quality your getting in the post its a bit hit & miss.

Originally Posted by ross.willow

Maybe they should look at moving the show to the edge of Brisbane, Samford would be a good spot for it. Turn it into an actual festival, food trucks & entertainment etc. I ummed and arrrredd about going to the show today, but decided against after seeing the exhibitor list. Turns out thankfully i didn't attend. The internet can't be held responsible for the death of a show, its a tool like any other just have to work out how to use it. Online shopping is great but when you don't know what quality your getting in the post its a bit hit & miss.

Samford would be an awesome spot.

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Originally Posted by ross.willow

Maybe they should look at moving the show to the edge of Brisbane, Samford would be a good spot for it. Turn it into an actual festival, food trucks & entertainment etc. I ummed and arrrredd about going to the show today, but decided against after seeing the exhibitor list. Turns out thankfully i didn't attend. The internet can't be held responsible for the death of a show, its a tool like any other just have to work out how to use it. Online shopping is great but when you don't know what quality your getting in the post its a bit hit & miss.

Hey Ross, Im in Samford! pm me if interested.... maybe we could compare notes over a coffee?...Gary

Well I went Saturday and as soon as I walked in the door I regretted having just paid the $16 to do so. It was a complete utter farce. If you wanted a quantity of campher then I suppose it would have been worth your while, as there was a good supply at good prices, but apart from that it was mostly dreadful. Even the stall holders I spoke to were embarrassed by the whole thing. I'm sure one of the timber suppliers just randomly made up the biggest numbers he could think of to price timber. The quality tool suppliers that did attend had very limited stocks. I'm simply never going again; it's utter rubbish. The Maleny timber show leaves this for dead.

I haven't been to the Brisbane woodshow for about 12 or 13 years because of work commitments, but I went every year from about 1994, it was the highlight of the year back then. It's a real shame to see it go like this , sounds like it will be lucky to happen again next year . At least there is the Maleny show now, hopefully I will get to go to that one oneday.

I totally agree that there needs to be more demonstrations at these shows. Just standing behind a counter isn't enough.

If I was selling tools or machines at these shows, especially new ones, then nothing sells a like seeing it being used.

It can leave the spectator thinking "I could do" that or "I could make that". I would have 3 seperate area's doing demo's, one after the other of all different products.

The timber merchants could bring their rough sawn slabs to the show and have them dressed in these demos. Win Win.

The more I think about this the more I think the current organisers don't really deserve to run this show. Harsh but true. It has been declining for years and they haven't done much to address the downward spiral. I don't know who the organisers are but they aren't doing a good job. Perhaps it is time for a change.

Well, I had been wondering whether I made the right call (not to go) but the feedback indicates that I did. I used to love this show - it went on my calendar a year in advance and I would arrange the Friday off work for it. To be honest I found the really full show quite overwhelming (though amazing) so, when friends told me it was getting smaller I wasn't too worried - I don't like crowds anyway. But, when I went in 2016 it was boring as could be. The range of timber was poor and, being a timber hoarder, I have a lot so I'm getting fussy and only want something special - there wasn't anything special enough so I came home empty handed.

If it is a timber and working with wood show then it has to have great timber (at affordable prices because we woodies are so tight and/or poor!) and lots of great demos. In 2016 it did not do that for me.

I really hope that the show organisers revitalise it as it was excellent to have a show right here in Brisbane. I'm not big on driving any more and, even though the Maleny Show is superb I can only drum up the enthusiasm for the drive every few years (yep, a stick-at-home woodworker).

I don't think it is the internet.
Consider this- the Maleny show keeps growing even though it is away from any population centre. (All due respect to Maleny township).
The Brisbane show seems to be doomed unless they get totally new organisers.

I didn't go to the Brisbane show. I haven't been for 8 or 9 years so I thought about going but it has got such bad reviews for the last 2 years I wasn't that fussed. What really killed it for me is that they have made it 2 weeks before Maleny. I don't want to spend any money for a month or two prior to Maleny because I'll stock up then. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I spent the weekend completing a project the wife needed finished before ANZAC day.

I don't work in this woodwork industry but I can talk about how it is for a vendor in another industry. The organisers think that their shows are a license to print money. The cost to have a booth in a show in my industry is far too high for a small company. We very, very occasionally do one when we are flush with marketing money and always regret it. We find it is not at all value for money - if not an almost complete waste of money and time.

The only events that have been worthwhile are ones we have organised for ourselves (like Carbatec and Machinery Warehouse do). Even though those cost us even more in total, we actually get good benefits from running it. (It costs us more because we don't have a venue and we need to pay for a lot of marketing to get people to attend in our industry. For Carbatec and Machinery Warehouse they already have a venue and seem to just stick something on their website. So they are mostly just paying for people's overtime.).

In our industry we aren't going to sell anything at the show it is more about searching for contacts and brand recognition. So the benefits are intangible in the first place. The organisers seem to be deluded about what the value of these shows are.

I got involved in a show recently which was run by an association. It was a major event at a major venue. They decided that they would organise their own show rather than hire a company. It was marketed better and run better in almost every way. Plus cheaper to attend. The association paid their own committee to run it, so it was not run by volunteers. They just weren't trying to make a killing out of hosting the event.

In our industry, there are a lot of large companies. for whom dropping $40,000+ to run a booth for a few days several times a year would be less than a rounding error on their budget. So these show organisers have the impression that it's money for jam. However from the vendors point of view it is not value for money. They just feel obliged to keep their brand out there and they have the budget to waste. The show is for the profit of the organisers. But rather than growing a particular industry most of them inadvertently work to keep it a closed club and stifle innovation.

So when I take those experiences and consider something like woodwork, which is all small businesses or even part time sole traders or else medium businesses working on small margins....

I don't know who or how the Brisbane show is organised. Probably there are several problems. However I suspect the organisers charge way too much and deliver far too little value for the vendors.

Once a show starts loosing vendors it is a downwards spiral.

Dave, I don't think any of us knows what the cost structures are for the TWWWS. I'd say a good deal of the cost for booth space has to do with what the RNA charges for 3 days use of their sheep pen. The current organisers are caught in a downward spiral - the number of vendors has been going steadily south, so they are possibly flogging the few who are left harder, to try & make a quid, which turns even more away - a bit like the P.O. and letters..

But this is all surmise - what is fact is that the show is getting smaller & smaller & attendance figures likewise. Lots of us have ideas about how to turn that around - I wonder why they aren't asking us?

Actually, that's not a completely facetious suggestion - if the show organisers knew anything at all about woodwork, they would know about the Forum, and be sussing us out - the least they could do is read this thread! But it seems to me they have either done no market research, or whoever dunnit for them should maybe go back to business school!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Actually, that's not a completely facetious suggestion - if the show organisers knew anything at all about woodwork, they would know about the Forum, and be sussing us out - the least they could do is read this thread! But it seems to me they have either done no market research, or whoever dunnit for them should maybe go back to business school!

Cheers,

One of the organisers used to frequent this forum when their shows were coming up but chose to leave after they received numerous disparaging comments from members one year. Can't say I blame them as the comments were very negative rather than voicing ideas that would create improvement.

Hi all, The writing was on the wall for me after last years show (or was it a no show ) so I did not go his year. However I believe that a move to somewhere like Samford would be a great idea, but will the organisers think so?. Maleny is a rural venue and as we all know works very well indeed. Cheers Brian.

Interesting .....the Impressive Exhibitions website (organisers of the shows in recent years) directs you to the rather appropriately-named "Phoenix Exhibitions" for enquiries relating to Woodworking shows. Even curiouser, the contact name provided is Candice Tocknell-Gray, who currently appears to be an employee of Carbatec Brisbane (from LinkedIn).