Every year we descend upon Melbourne for the largest gift and homewares tradeshow of the year, the AGHA’s Melbourne Gift Fair. The last few years have sadly been muddied by that virus we no longer like talking about, so it was a thrilling ride to finally be back in action!
What exactly is a tradeshow you may find yourself wondering - well, besides being an event that takes months of blood, sweat, and the odd few tears to plan and pull together, to put it simply, it’s an event held to bring together members of a particular industry to display, demonstrate, and discuss their latest products and services, which for us means we get to premier our brand new collections and seasons to our beloved old and new shops & stockists!
To start the week off, we hopped on a flight from Sydney to Melbourne and spent two days unpacking and slowly but carefully building out our 16 metre stand. We set up everything from decorating the walls to designing the lighting. It’s long days and late nights as we rush to ensure every collection and product looks perfect and fits just right!
Then, by day three, the doors open to the public and we’re open for five consecutive days to showcase the best of La La Land to registered visitors! This has got to be our favourite part, we absolutely love meeting our stockists from all over the country, from boutique shops in big cities to gift shops that travel thousands of kilometres from the outback. It’s so important to have this opportunity to meet with everyone, hear their stories and find out what they’re loving about our brand. It’s also a great opportunity to collect feedback so we can take this onboard to better their experience and our products in the future.
It doesn’t all just end at 5pm when doors close each day - in fact that’s often then the beginning of our jam packed evenings where we dash back to our hotel, throw on fresh clothes and hit the town for a series of dinners and drinks with our legendary sales team, who join us for every show to help out and take orders on our stand.
Finally, the last day of the tradeshow comes and its time to pack down - this is probably the hardest part of the show, you’re tired, your feet are killing you, and you’re basically functioning off three large oat lattes and a bite of a muesli bar. It’s time to take down all your hard work, and pack it up to ship back home.
It sure is a huge victory when the last box of goods is taped and the AGHA crew come along to collect your things, so we always insist - no matter how exhausted you may feel, on celebrating another successful show! This year we were lucky enough to hit up the Drag Expo which if you, like us, LOVE all things drag, was absolutely amazing and the best way to get off our feet and enjoy some good times with our favourite drag queens.
And that’s a wrap! We’re so excited to bring our brand new season collections online to share with you all - keep your eyes peeled and if you haven’t yet, sign up to our newsletter to get first dibs!