AUSTRALASIA – Reed Exhibitions, Australian Exhibitions and Conferences (AEC) and Sexpo are among the exhibition organisers and events to throw their support behind Australia’s landmark new rules for exhibition auditing.
Launched in November, the Circulations Audit Board’s (CAB) new rules encompass changes to the reporting of attendance and marketing metrics across both trade and consumer exhibitions.
According to not-for-profit company CAB, Australia’s exhibition and event industry has been quick to embrace the new rules, with adult lifestyle exhibition Sexpo (pictured) signing up to be audited for the first time in 2012.
Sexpo GM Rob Godwin said auditing was “vital for the ongoing success of our show, and public exhibitions in general, to be able to show credible data and results to encourage participation from sponsors, exhibitors and the general public”.
The rules encompass the first major changes to exhibition auditing in Australia in more than six years, including the new core attendance metric of Unique Visitor Attendance, a metric that counts each visitor only once for the entire duration of an event, regardless of the number of visits.
Other exhibition organisers committed to having events audited in 2012 are Exibit, Diversified Exhibitions Australia, XPO Exhibitions (New Zealand), and Exhibitions and Events Australia.
“The challenge is ensuring all organisers adopt this metric so there is one benchmark and a level playing field,” said AEC marketing manager Sally Cutler. “It is imperative to have quality and content standards to stop events that are not audited counting irrelevant visitors including guests, spouses and staff as attendance.”
Managing director of Reed Exhibitions Debbie Evans said the new rules better reflect the current needs of the exhibitions market.
“Today’s exhibition organisers want an audit that does more than merely count numbers, providing qualitative analysis and adding value to their commercial activity, and the CAB’s enhanced audit process delivers in this regard,” said Evans.
The Exhibition and Event Association of Australasia (EEAA) is to provide an update on Sydney’s redevelopment next week, to discuss the impact Darling Harbour’s temporary closure will have on local business.
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