Exhibitors have been giving the thumbs up to last week’s vending exhibition, AVEX, organised by the Automatic Vending Association (AVA) and held at the NEC in Birmingham.
For Gary Senior at Mondelez International: “AVEX has given us a fantastic and timely chance to educate our customers on our Premier League partnership and the opportunity that this presents for vending operators.”
Christian McManus at Foro International said…
“At other shows you’re giving out product with consumers that you don’t get to engage with whereas at this we are talking to people that we want to be talking to and …getting more trade contacts after the show which is absolutely what a trade show is for.”
This was echoed by Graham Flint at Mars Chocolate UK who said…
“What is good is that the people who do attend are the right people that you need to see. It’s been good for meeting the right people.”
According to Amie Trigwell at 9Bar:
“When we first started we were on one of [the] little stalls…and now we’ve got our own stand. We’re enjoying knowing a lot of people that are coming to see us and that all started from AVEX.”
Ben Brookes at N&W said it was “amazing to see the whole thing come together” while the team from Stanley Handling had “an excellent time”. Bert Wallace at SV365 Technologies meanwhile reported that “AVEX was awesome for us” and Matt Haselden from Vision Ingredients stated: “What a great week!”
The view from international exhibitors was also positive with Tony Danna of US company Three Square Market saying: “Thank you for a great show and allowing us to meet so many great people.” Meanwhile Randy Smith from American exhibitor, LightSpeed Automation said: “This was the first international show that LightSpeed has participated in and we were very pleased with the results. We look forward to future AVEX events.”
Jonathan Hart, the Chief Executive of the Automatic Vending Association commented:
“It’s tremendous to get this feedback from exhibitors. A considerable effort was made by the team to get the right sort of people visiting the show and these comments demonstrate that this has been a success. We are already looking at plans for 2019!”
