Organisers of New Zealand’s largest trade exhibition for the building, construction and design industries are calling their recent show a huge success, with record crowds of more than 5000 builders, architects, designers, planners, developers and related trades visiting across the three days.
The event, held in Auckland, attracted more than 300 exhibiting companies, assisted in part by the decision to co-locate the National Safety Show alongside buildnz designex. The organiser says exhibitors put in a great deal of effort building two-storey houses and prefabricated structures onsite at the expo, not to mention hosting live demonstrations of tooling and new product releases.
Brent Spillane, managing director of show organisers XPO Exhibitions, says the Ian Moore session titled Residensity showcased a selection of the kiwi-born architect’s many award-winning apartments and existing building transformations in Australia and New Zealand to a packed session of more than 230 industry visitors.
Prefab NZ chief executive Pamela Bell also hosted a panel session titled The Affordable Housing Puzzle that at tracted very strong numbers — linking her feature interactive installation on the show floor where visitors assembled and later dissembled the Click-Raft system of prefabricated timber panels made from home-grown materials.
“We’ ve been inundated with feedback that the show had a lot more building and construction innovations than prior shows — a mix of kiwi-made and/or internationally sourced,” Mr Spillane says. “The NZ German Business Association hosted an entire aisle of German-made build technology and solutions, with the German Ambassador Dr Anne-Marie Schleich taking time out to host an evening function on the back of their Energy Efficiency conference onsite with a good 150-plus delegates.
“We’ve had good feedback that the show is hitting all the buttons in terms of a targeted trade industry attendance. There is no other event bringing the biggest and best innovators in construction together under one roof,” Mr Spillane says.
The Registered Master Builders Association hosted large numbers of builders on its stand, sharing its “business tool belt” to help builders navigate choppy waters with rising materials and labour costs. The Association’s Brendon Ward covered off similar content in the Building Better Business session on day one of the show.
The strong numbers of builders in attendance commented that the seminars, workshops and product education were important for CPD points for the LBP skill maintenance programme. Licensed Building Practioner registrar from the Ministry of Building Innovation and Employment, Paul Hobbs, ran a session outlining the importance of aligning education to “on the job” applications so builders receive more credible and meaningful learning outcomes.
Marshall Hutt of Cherrywood Homes, Kopu, won a brand new Ford Ranger XLT 4×4 Double Cab ute courtesy of Ford Motors of New Zealand and XPO. Mr Hutt has been in business for 32 years, building more than 500 homes in the Coromandel, and was over the moon with the win!
