The joint venture company, called Fair Events, will be responsible for organising the post-Christmas jewellery trade fair held in early March – traditionally taking place in Brisbane but moving to the Gold Coast for 2014 – along with the recently announced Jewellery Industry Forums set for Perth and Adelaide.
The new company will also hold the Brisbane Gift Fair from 2014 onwards. The gift fair is a former Reed Exhibitions event that is held in July each year.
Expertise Events managing director Gary Fitz-Roy stressed that there would be no change to the management of the industry’s major event, the pre-Christmas International Jewellery Fair in Sydney.
The joint announcement states that Expertise Events will own 51 per cent of the new business while Reed Exhibitions will have a 49 per cent stake. Both organisations will continue to operate their current businesses separately and Expertise Events will be responsible for managing and selling the shows that operate under the Fair Events banner.
The partnership is said to signal a new model for Australia’s exhibition industry and according to Expertise Events managing director Gary Fitz-Roy, “our two organisations have had a long association and to be working co-operatively is exciting. Some of the ideas already tabled just make common sense and who knows where we might end up."
Similarly, Debbie Evans, managing director of Reed Exhibitions Australia commented, “in today's market, alliances assist in ensuring that the best input from different organisations can be pooled, shared and used to deliver better results for our customers."
The organisations worked together earlier this year when the jewellery fair in Melbourne co-located with the Reed gift fair. As previously reported by Jeweller, the collaboration received mixed responses from both exhibitors and visitors.
Further announcements, including possible new exhibition launches, are expected to be made soon.
Expertise Events is an Australian-owned and managed exhibition and event organiser, running more than 30 trade and consumer events in Australia and New Zealand.
Reed Exhibitions is a global company that runs about 450 events in 36 countries. Its local office organises 20 events each year throughout various parts of Australia.