Upcoming fish show a valuable resource for industry

By Tina Comeau

SOU'WESTER

NovaNewsNow.com

The organizers of the Fish Canada/Workboat Canada show being held in Moncton Feb. 7-9 say the three-day event is a valuable resource to the commercial fishing and marine industry.

With nearly 100 exhibitors on the floor, and some 5,000 people passing through the doors of the show held here two years ago, the biggest attraction of the event is the number of people it draws in from a large geographical area.

“It is the draw,” says Jeff Lacey of Master Promotions Ltd. when talking about the appeal of the show to exhibitors, themselves coming in from all parts of the Atlantic provinces, and even Quebec and Maine. A new exhibitor to this year’s event is a clothing company originating out of Norway, but with an agent in the region.

The Moncton show pulls in people from the north shore of New Brunswick, into the Gaspé Bay region of Quebec, down into the southern part of New Brunswick into the Bay of Fundy and Grand Manan. Its reach also stretches into Prince Edward Island and northern Nova Scotia.

It takes about a calendar year to prepare for a show of this scale, starting out with the logistics of confirming exhibitors and then moving into attendee promotions and marketing plans. Working out building logistics and working with contractors is also time consuming.

The Fish Canada show is held every second year in Moncton. Every other year the Eastern Canadian Fisheries Exposition is held in Yarmouth. Many of the exhibitors in one show also take part in the other.

Still, the show in Moncton is bigger in terms of its floor-space size and the number of people it attracts – the venue and its geography accounting for both of these factors.

Because of the Moncton Coliseum venue, the show is able to incorporate a workboat component, which is different from the show held in Yarmouth.

Lacey says they work to promote this aspect to potential show attendees like police and fire personnel and government agencies that would use workboats.

As well, the show in Moncton also tries harder to attract those in the aquaculture industry.

“Then on top of the workboat side, the other big difference (from the Yarmouth show) in terms of attraction to the show is the commercial fishing side where we have full-blown, full-size fishing vessels inside the show,” says Lacey. “We have four of these boats from different manufacturers from across Atlantic Canada.”

While not all exhibitors at the show will necessarily leave having made sales, they will leave having made valuable contacts and having had the chance to promote their wares to a receptive audience.

“We had a very successful show in 2006 in terms of attendance and we’re hoping to mirror that, if not grow it a little bit,” says Lacey.