ANDA Melbourne 2009 Trade Show - Off and Racing

The level of activity at the ANDA trade shows that have been held so far in 2009 have been something of a tale of two cities - Perth in March was really busy for anyone that you'd care to ask, while Brisbane in May wasn't anywhere near the same standard. Just how Melbourne in July works out we'll find out soon enough!

ANDA was forced to take reasonably drastic action in order to improve the profitability of the Melbourne and Sydney shows in 2009 - although our Association doesn't mind losing money on a particular show if it provides a service to the collecting public and our members, it just wasn't sustainable for a not-for-profit association to continue to incur losses of between $8,000 and $10,000 per show if that money isn't being made up elsewhere.

So for 2009, we says goodbye to the Rod Laver Tennis Centre (which, judging by the number of 5-year-olds that got on the number 70 tram out of the city yesterday afternoon is currently hosting a Disney production of some sort), and say hello to the Caulfield racecourse, which fortunately is not hosting a Disney production of any kind.

I know that my past attendance at Melbourne shows has given me the opportunity to interact with numerous savvy collectors that have spent well over the years, and has also yielded a nice range of "fresh" treasures.

Victorians won't be able to use lousy weather as an excuse for not coming along (although there is some blue in the sky as I write this at the moment so I won't complain too loudly), but the patchy retail market may have an influence in how keen those that do head along part with their hard earned. Although the economic statistics that were published on June 30th point toward strong activity in the month of May, I'd be interested to see just which sectors of the retail market benefited the most from the Commonwealth Government's stimulus payments and interest rate reductions. My bet is that much of those newfound dollars would have gone into products and services that didn't require too much grey matter to pick up.

We live in hope of all our little ducks being lined up in a row and the show being a roaring success, but I suspect we may need to get used to the fact that business could, could be lean or even a bit patchy for a little while longer yet.