The Beef Australia committee\u00a0is surveying the public to gauge opinions on whether the Rockhampton Beef Week event should become biennial (every second year) rather than triennial (every 3 years).<\/p>\n
Attending Beef Week at Rockhampton\u00a0costs me\u00a0more than $5,000 to attend as an exhibitor:\u00a0 not much short of\u00a0$1,000 in accommodation (6 nights, scalper rates in a caravan park cabin – booked more than 12 months prior), $3,000 in tradefair site fees (booked 9 months prior), and more than $1,000 in fuel, basic meals etc.\u00a0\u00a0 Just as significantly, it involves being away from home for 7 full days – with days either side spent on preparation, unpacking etc.\u00a0\u00a0 This of course involves significant cost, also.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A\u00a0large amount of\u00a0sales are required to make a net profit.\u00a0 Exhibitors always ask themselves if there’s a more profitable way to spend their time, money and energy.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I imagine this\u00a0financial & time summary\u00a0is fairly typical of \u00a0many of the tradefair participants – and the bigger the business, the higher the cost of attendance (freight, staff\u00a0costs etc) so the higher the sale value has to be to make the same percentage net profit.<\/p>\n
From the outset, Beef Week has been held once every 3 years – yet I have still only managed to\u00a0attend every second one.\u00a0 There have often been other demands on my time and\/or money or energy\u00a0that have prevented consistent attendance.\u00a0 Enjoyable though it is, tradefair attendance is exhausting for a sole owner\/manager small business owner.\u00a0 There is absolutely no way I would make it to Beef Week every time it was held, if it was on every second year, despite whatever good intentions I may have.<\/p>\n
Because Beef Week is only on every third year, I do make a big effort to get there.\u00a0 You know if you miss it it’s a three year wait until the next\u00a0opportunity.\u00a0 You also know that while it costs a bit of time and money, the time & budget bank has\u00a0three years to recover before it rolls around again.<\/p>\n
If\u00a0Beef Week is held every second year, what will happen?\u00a0 Rural Australians are ultra busy people, and everyone has only so much money to spend.\u00a0\u00a0The more often Beef Week is on, the more likely they are to think, ‘oh well, it’s not so long to the next\u00a0one, I’ll give it a miss this year and go next time’.<\/p>\n
The absolute highlight for me is seeing people I haven’t seen for years – people I’d otherwise not be likely to bump into.\u00a0 Last time I attended Beef Week I saw an ag college lecturer that I hadn’t seen since 1983.\u00a0 Every time I go I see owners, managers, ringers, chopper pilots etc that I haven’t seen for years, and I meet mail order customers that I’d otherwise have never met in person.\u00a0 These are people who live all over Australia – who have made a special trip to Rockhampton to attend Beef Week.\u00a0 Are these people going to spend the significant amount of money and time to attend 30% more often?\u00a0 I doubt it.\u00a0 Instead they’ll come every second time (i.e. once every 4 years, rather than every 3 or 2).\u00a0 And more significantly, because there is likely to be fewer tradefair exhibitors and they’ll bump into fewer of their friends (some of whom would have not attended because they’re coming ‘next time’ instead), the overall experience will be\u00a0watered down.<\/p>\n
The more often a rural event is held, the lower the percentage of remote area residents attending.\u00a0\u00a0 Every three years is just often enough to keep people keen while not so overly frequent that they’re likely to\u00a0have to miss\u00a0attending due to time or cash shortages.\u00a0 AgQuip is held annually, however it pertains to a sector of agriculture that is far more closely settled – farming.\u00a0 Held in the northern NSW cropping heartland town of Gunnedah,\u00a0it is the largest agricultural machinery field day in Australia.\u00a0 Many people travel hundreds of kilometres and from other states to attend, however the vast majority of visitors live within several hundred kilometres – from southern Qld cropping country down to central NSW.\u00a0 The average AgQuip visitor would have travelled a much shorter distance to Gunnedah than the average Beef Week visitor travels to Rockhampton.<\/p>\n
Equitana is the equine equivalent of Beef Week in Rockhampton.\u00a0 The absolute highlight for me at Equitana\u00a0Melbourne in November 2010, was the massive amount of visitors from all over Australia.\u00a0 In fact, the vast majority of people I spoke to lived outside Victoria.\u00a0 There were large numbers of people from northern WA, the NT, Tasmania\u00a0and north Qld.\u00a0\u00a0 As well as New Zealand and other\u00a0countries.\u00a0 \u00a0Most of these people had planned and saved to attend, well in advance.\u00a0 They were passionate and very excited to be there – they’d looked forward to it for 2 years – and this enthusiasm helped foster a great atmosphere.\u00a0 (Apparently the biggest Equitana Australia event held to date was the previous one, which had been held after a 3 years absence due to postponement in the midst of the Equine Influenza outbreak.)\u00a0 By contrast,\u00a0I have met\u00a0a large number of locals (living within a couple of hundred km or so) at Equitana, AgQuip\u00a0and Beef \u00a0Week who have clearly only attended because\u00a0they ‘may as well’.\u00a0\u00a0 Raise the percentage of those who have only attended because it’s easy, and the atmosphere changes for those who’ve attended with enthusiasm.\u00a0 Meeting lukewarm local visitors who don’t care that much about whether they are there or not, when you’ve travelled more than 1,000km especially to attend, is like having\u00a0 a wet blanket dropped on your head.<\/p>\n
The number of northern cattle station residents attending Equitana\u00a0was completely unexpected and made it incredibly interesting for me, and while there were many great aspects it is this one in particular that would lure me back to attend again.\u00a0Equitana Melbourne ‘super tickets’ sold out within weeks.\u00a0 Equitana is on again this year, only 12 months later, in Sydney.\u00a0\u00a0 However there are\u00a0still hundreds of the special\u00a0tickets available for sale this year, several months after they were available to purchase.\u00a0 Regional and remote residents simply don’t have the cash and time to attend these big events on a too-frequent basis, and they are far more likely to think ‘it’s a bit difficult to go this year, we’ll go next time instead’, if the gap between events is reduced.<\/p>\n
So is someone pushing for Beef Week to be held every second year instead of every third?\u00a0 No doubt, it would be vested interests in town who perceive they may have more money in the bank if Beef Week is held more often.\u00a0 Accommodation owners, eateries, hoteliers, etc.\u00a0 Businesses who are not involved in agriculture but in tourism.\u00a0 Is Beef Week run primarily for the benefit of the beef industry, or primarily for the benefit of Rockhampton businesses who will rake in some extra cash by overpricing their accommodation?\u00a0 I guess this is something for the Beef Week committee to ponder.\u00a0 If it shifts to being held every second year, you can be sure that local businesspeople would be the ones behind the change, not pastoralists.\u00a0 Undoubtedly there would be more money over the years\u00a0in the coffers of particular Rockhampton businesses if Beef Week became biennial, and it may be easier to run and take pressure off tightly stretched accommodation due to lower attendance each time, but it would be to the detriment of the quality of the event.<\/p>\n
I suspect visitors who have travelled a long way to attend are worth by far the most to event organisers and the surrounding town.\u00a0 They’ve travelled a long way so they stay for the whole time, attend every day, spend up at the tradefair and on accommodation and transport.\u00a0 Many out-of-town visitors to Equitana Melbourne had planned a day or two before or after Equitana for relaxation – which usually involved spending more money on other things besides extra accommodation nights and meals.\u00a0 Whereas locals often visit the show for just one day\u00a0then drive home that afternoon – perhaps not even spending much on food, let alone anything else.<\/p>\n
On a personal front, business on my tradefair stand (at\u00a0Rocky’s Beef Week and Equitana) \u00a0has always been by far the best on the first and second days.\u00a0 The majority of these sales are to people who have travelled a long way to be there.\u00a0 There are usually more people attending towards the end of the tradeshow, but a much higher percentage are locals (within 100km or so), and they often seem to spend less.\u00a0 Many of the sales made towards the end of the tradefair are to people who came past on the first one or two days, and have come back to purchase just before carting their heavy parcels home.<\/p>\n
People who have made the effort to travel long distances to attend rural events such as Rocky’s Beef Week, Equitana and AgQuip are also great ambassadors.\u00a0 They tell people where they’re off to\/where they’ve been when travelling to\/from their destination, they talk about it with enthusiasm when they arrive home, and they encourage others to attend.\u00a0 In other words, distant visitors are like travelling advertisements.\u00a0 They are the ones who are worth the most to event organisers and local businesses such as motels and cafes, and I hope in the case of Beef Week, they will be treated with respect.<\/p>\n
The Australian beef industry is our most decentralised industry and no doubt, one of the most decentralised pastoral industries in the world, given that our cattle stations are the largest enterprises of their kind.\u00a0 So in this respect participants are unique and should be treated as such.\u00a0\u00a0 Nor should agricultural shows in Australia be compared to those run in other countries – for example the U.S., with a population of more than 300 million people, which can support the running of annual week-long livestock expositions each winter.<\/p>\n
If you want to put your two bob’s worth in on whether Beef Week should become biennial, visit the Beef Australia website and fill in the online survey.\u00a0\u00a0 The survey organisers say it\u00a0only takes 10 minutes to fill in – but it\u00a0 took me just 3 minutes, and I typed in a few answers as well as ticking the boxes.\u00a0 I hope those who fill the survey in, who encourage the committee to change Beef Week to biennial, are sure that they and everyone they know would actually support the change by attending every second year.\u00a0 It’s easy\u00a0to tick a box stating that running it ‘more often’ sounds like a good idea – but if it Beef Week changes to being held every 2 years, and people don’t act on their intentions, it will be to the detriment of what is a unique event.<\/p>\n