AGQUIP has meant tens of millions of dollars worth of sales for exhibitors, with the promise of more to come.
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Rural Press Events general manager Barry Harley said, although numbers were down on the first day of the three-day event, some exhibitors had their best first-day sales ever.
Mr Harley said the exhibitors averaged about $50-$60 million from the site overall across the three days and, in follow-up sales, they get about $160 million worth of sales directly from the event.
“That indicates that it’s touch, feel’, compare, then they make their decisions based on other factors later, like timing for crops and timing for revenue,” he said.
Mr Harley said one tool seller said it was his best Tuesday ever of any field day.
“While it’s raining, farmers can’t do a lot of their work on their properties, so they come out to the field days,” he said.
“The rain means an optimistic outlook – if someone has a late crop in, it finishes it off and can be the difference between getting a crop or not getting a crop. The first day attracted quality, not necessarily quantity.”
Mr Harley said some larger machinery people had very good inquiries, but not sales, while Volkswagen sold many vehicles directly from the site and a trailer company that makes custom trailers sold three within two hours on Tuesday and a tyre company sold more on Tuesday than over the three days last year.
The 42nd year of the field days saw about 100,000 people visiting just under 800 exhibitors representing more than 3000 companies.
“It was a very successful event,” Mr Harley said.
“All-in-all, we had two fine days out of three and we had a bunch of people here and smiles all ‘round. People are happy and philosophical.”