New Zealand’s largest tradeshow organiser, XPO Exhibitions, recently acquired nine national consumer exhibitions from North Port Events.
The acquisition includes The Baby Shows, The Food Shows (Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch), Fine Food New Zealand, Facilities Integrate, The Waikato Home & Garden Show and Autumn HomeXPO.
XPO managing director Brent Spillane said: “The profile and stature of these events compliment those already organised by XPO and the acquisition injects significant new scale and talent.”
The purchase will combine more than 40 staff, lifting XPO’s portfolio to that of the largest independently owned B2B and B2C exhibitions organiser in Australasia.
XPO originally purchased DMG World Media NZ’s tradeshows in 2009 (part of the Daily Mail Group UK) before adding Hayley Media’s tradeshows a few years later.
“Our sector expos now span food and beverage manufacturing and retail, general manufacturing, packaging, baby, gift and homewares, build construction and design, home shows, facilities management, wholesaling, workplace safety, logistics and more,” says Spillane. “Each show serves the largest national attendance for each market, both at exhibitor and visitor level. We’re confident there will be strong cross-pollination across events,” Spillane added.
XPO said it will run 18 shows in 2020 with more than 3,500 exhibiting companies and 150,000 visitors.
Dona and Gavin White husband and wife owners of North Port Events welcomed the shows moving from one Kiwi-owned family business to another. “It’s been an emotional journey having launched many of these shows and we’ve taken great pride overseeing their growth and success. Over the 25 years we’ve been organising these events, we’ve celebrated many wins with our clients, visitors and staff, but we’re now at a point where we’re pleased to hand them over to XPO to keep evolving them. While the sale will be a big change for us personally, we remain committed – alongside our daughter Hayley, and co-director Stephanie Post – to running the Auckland Art Fair which keeps going from strength-to-strength.”
