HOBART WWW Show

[ubeaut]

U & Beaut are currently in Hobart. From our room we are looking out across the Derwent River to a cloud shrouded mountain, peaceful, scerene and b... cold, yet pretty close to the Cadbury factory (yummy tour coming up). We set up today for the WWW Show.

We are on Stand 29 and will be running constant demos on turned and flat finishing or at least until the demonstrator (that's me) runs out of energy and falls in a screaming heap mumbling take me home, take me home.

Best of all........

Everything will be discounted..... EVERYTHING.




:mad: WARNING :mad:
Make the most of it. Everything will be going up pretty soon as we have just been hit with a 30% price rise on all new shellac and a 25% - 30% price rise on almost everything else, including all plastic containers, most solvents, many waxes, and in general almost everything that has anything to do with petrol. IT WILL MOST LIKELY GET WORSE in the months to come.



Even so, if you want to buy anything from us at the show, and you bring along a pic of Woody (shown below) and you will receive an extra 10% discount off our already discounted prices.

(Rotary Sanders and Glow Special not included)


http://www.ubeaut.com.au/smilewood1.jpg



We look forward to seeing many of you at the show. If we don't see you, have a really good one anyway and try not to melt down the plastic.




Cheers - Neil :D

[TassieKiwi]

Hi Neil


I would LOVE to come down to see you, but locked in a camping trip LONG ago (sigh). Still, if it really rains.......

Wil you guys be coming to the Launceston show next year?

[ernknot]

Neil,
I and the boss will be at the show on Friday. Actually she is taking me out shopping for my birthday. Lunch at Prossers (Seafood eatery) on Saturday, ah! what a life. Will do some prospecting at the show and maybe go back on Sunday and collect.
TassieKiwi,
Camping!! bloody camping ??? while the woodwork show is on. Must be a hot chick?? or you know where the trout are biting??? So tell me, where are they biting?

[KevM]

Met U & Beaut again today while setting up. Maate, after the trip to Cadbury's tomorrow, you will be so full of energy from all that chocolate, you'll be able to demonstrate all weekend, particularly if you get a couple of 5kg boxes.

Neil, you need to call it the Tasmanian WWW Show, otherwise those northerners might get their nose out of joint and not come down. Funny lot those Northern Tasmanians (I can say that since I saw the light and emigrated south 29 years ago).

Call in and say hi to me in the foyer to the left past the ticket office, I'll be on the Woodcraft Guild Tasmania's stand, might even demonstrate some pen turning using Ubeaut's EEE and Shellwax if I can get near our lathe.

regards

Kev M

[KevM]

Completed the set up on the combined Woodcraft Guild's stand before opening at 10:00am, met Badger and PTC. Good to put some names to faces. Hope to see some more members of the Bulletin Board at the show over the next two days, I'll be on the combined Woodcraft Guilds' stand to the left inside the main foyer.

Kev M

[John Saxton]

This show stays in a similar timeframe, I can see me and 'Er indoors visiting her rellies in the Snug (Tassie of course)...of course after spendin' time regaling ,Chris U & Beaut with a load of W.A. vernacular...or bulldust ..whatever.

Be an opportunity to visit the rellies of course via Jeff's Shed :) providing those Victorians dont rip all me hard earned off of me with all the goodies they'll have there!

Hope you'se all ava great time :cool:

Cheers :)

[ubeaut]

Day one is over and many of us haven't even made enough to pay for the boat trip across. Come on all you Taswiegins pay a visit and support the many exhibitors who have paid out thousands to try and make this a great show for you.

You may never get another chance to do this again if you don't support this one. At 5:00pm they announced over the speakers that the show was closed for today and one exhibitor was heard to say "Did it open, strewth..... I must have blinked???"

Come on Tassie, you can do it. Get up and come to the show on Saturday or Sunday. It isn't the biggest but there certainly is a heap of good stuff to see including FREE woodturning seminars by Richard Raffan and Bruce Bell along with others by Roger Gifkin, Les Miller, Neil Scobie and others.

Cheers - Neil :)

[ptc]

Neil.
How did it end up.?
have been waiting to see if there was any feed back
it cost me an arm and a leg to go.
dog in kennels
pricey motel etc you know who [shopping in town and a trip to Salamanca Market.]
and spent $350 at show.
regards.
ptc

[Wood Borer]

What did you get PTC?

[ptc]

Shellawax glow and sanding discs from Neil
and the Razortip pyrograhy m/c for ??????.
ptc.

[KevM]

PTC,
:) I understand from talking to the organisers after the show, that they intend to schedule another one next year, at that stage no dates had been confirmed but either two weeks before or two weeks after the Melbourne show, which will be held earlier in October next year.

Some exhibitors were really happy, Roger Gifkin was taking orders for his dovetail jigs by lunchtime Sunday as he had run out. From the Woodcraft Guild of Tasmania's viewpoint, :D more than happy with the interest in the Guild shown by the general public, the next couple of months should tell if the interest translates into new members.

regards

Kev M

[Wood Borer]

Let's hope the show will continue in Hobart and the Guild attracts new members.

[reeves]

Yes i was there, now back in Qld.


I bought the new turning sander bizzo and some new glow shellawax.

very happy, good show good time.

cheeeers

[KevM]

Wood Borer,
The reason for the Woodcraft Guild of Tasmania's involvement was to showcase the Guild to non members, prospecting for new members so we did set out to sell items, just showing a variety of items ranging from furniture to small items.

I'll try and post a photo when I can work out how to reduce it in size.

regards

Kev M

[Neil]

ptc - We went to the show expecting to lose around $6,000 - $7,000 as it was we only lost around $4,000 so all in all we had a reasonably good show. We did get a number of new users for our Tas distributers and got a lot of people sorted out with their application process (no more steel wool for a lot of people). So hopefully there will be more sales over the next 12 mths generated from our visit.

We will need to think very carefully before going to the next one. If you don't get heads through the door you don't make many sales, I would be very surprised if there was more than 5,000 genuine visiters to the show, many were there for 2 or 3 days which bumped the numbers up.

Roger Gifkin had a really good show as Kev said so did a couple of others but that wasn't the norm. Most would have made a loss or barely covered their expenses including the organizers who made a loss of many thousands of dollars. Maverick Industries were still waiting for their show stock to turn up on Sunday after the show was over. It never did.

We had a week off to have a really quick look around, so that was a bit of a bonus. (first thing that almost passed for a holiday in 18 years)

Cheers - Neil :)

[reeves]

Justa few thoughts on Neils comments.

I was at the show before it opend on friday and there were poeple waiting to get in, demand seemed pretty good. I did not see the whole weekend but in Tassie with less population u r gonna get less people.

It would seem that having it on the same weekend as the Deloraine craft show would have limited some participants and visitors. Making sure it will not conflict with with other major events in the future will help make it a success.

One thing I did notice is that a lot of people aroun Hobart, in galleries , at the markets etc, people innvolved in woodcraft, had no idea it was on and had no idea that people like Richard Raffan were demonstrating. I could not go into the reaosns for this but it was obvious that on the ground level in Tasmania there was not a strong awareness of the event in the community.

I think particpants expectations wre formed by the mainland shows and that a Hobart show by its nature will have different dynamics and outcomes.

I think there would need to be

- greater advertising and promotion of the event on the gorund in tasmania
- greater invited participation from tassie based people, companies and organisations
- reduced fees for mainland stall holders to help with costs and getting level
-greater co-ordination of resources, asi some people from WA and NSW had brought a fair bit of wood to tasmania to sell, this is great but there is heaps of wood available in tassie and i doubt whether they sold much of non tasie stuff it all wodd avilability is good.
- Prices of wood, if the event is to become a place where people get a strong supply of fine timbers i think the pricing could be more competative to encourage this, more market like, more haggling, more bidding for price etc.

I think that if they had someone form the local wood community in Tassie working on it before hand ( dont knowif they didnt) then it may increase participation.

What i really enjoyed was the demonstratiosn and seminars, tho i think it better to have less going simultaneously and more co-ordination in terms of them being really useful.

More of a community feel, in terms of meeting, sharing and innvolving in all things wood.

I hope i can amke it next year

cheeeeeeeeers

[TassieKiwi]

Neil

Another clash was that there was a public holiday for the NW coast, which may have robbed you of potential visitors- traditionally the 'first' summer long weekend, maybe everyone was at the beach. It was the ONLY reason that I didn't attend. I promise to come next year, and bring all my friends!

[Neil]

One thing that was commented on is that many people who attended thought it was only demonstrations etc and were for some reason under the impression you couldn't buy things. A definite advertising problem.

Everywhere you went in Tasmania there were large banners proclaiming the Deloraine Weekend, even outside the venue for the WWWShow and until the Thursday there was only 1 sign for the WWW Show which was at the venue and easily missed. A promotional problem.

Many of those who attended were there for an outing and had little or no interest in woodwork. Bad targeting of advertising.

We personally found that a lot of the people we demonstrated to were very parochial and wouldn't buy from us, saying they would get it from a distributor. It seems the ones who did the best at the show were either locals or had a product that wasn't readily available in Tas. (It costs many thousands of dollars to do one of these shows, especially if you come from the mainland to Tas. Lack of support for exhibitors won't encourage them to come back again.)

One exhibitor who regularly sells 40-50 units at a local monthly market had only sold 14 by the end of the weekend. His comment was that next year he would give the WWW Show organizers $2,000 and stay home, that way he would save over $5,000. We watched as he worked his guts out talking to every person who passed by his stand. He went from bright and cheery at the start of the show to downcast and despondent by Saturday night. On Sunday it was a real drag for him and even feeding him red lollies didn't help in any way. I understand his sentiments.

Cheers - Neil :)

PS As I said earlier, we did better than anticipated, we would have loved to have done more and at least cover our costs, but never really thought we would. All in all we were happy with our preformance at the show, but disapointed that it was so poorely attended.

[Stephen H]

I visited the Hobart show on the Friday (thinking I'd be able to avoid the crowds, but sounds like that wasn't a problem).

Never having been to such a show, but I did have some expectations. I wasn't anticipating seeing wood (plenty of that down here) rather I wanted to see all the nice toys we see in the catalogues but don't get a chance to see in real life. As for myself, I went hoping to compare and buy a table saw but aside from the Jets there didn't appear to be any others (at least none for the home user). So my money stayed in my pocket.

If I recall, I think the jig sellers etc were very popular - I certainly slathered over some of them (the jigs - not the sellers ;) ).

I found those who used amplifiers to be a bit off-putting - but understand the reason.

[Stephen H]

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, if I were advertising it for an audience that doesn't see this kind of show very often, I think I'd promote not simply that there is a show, but the types of businesses who will be there, and the amazing demos, jigs, tools, machinery etc (ie the woodworking worlds' equivalent of circus advertising - "come and see the amazing bearded lady / amazing all-in-one dovetail, dowelling, coffee making band saw" etc)

Also, it might be a good marketing idea if the bigger businesses sent out a show catalogue to the Tasmanian residents on their mailing lists a couple of weeks before. The catalogues would show the special prices etc and give people time to figure out what they want to get.

Anyway, my 2c worth.