FINAL report for exhibitors at Ballarat Brides 2009

Introduction
In February 2007 Mercure Ballarat (then Doherty’s Hotel and Convention Centre) approached Visionary events & marketing about holding a wedding expo at their venue.
Visionary events & marketing aimed to provide Ballarat with an expo that reaches the same professional look as expos that are held in Melbourne and was regional Victoria’s largest wedding expo. It is the belief of Visionary events & marketing that we delivered a high quality, professional event to Ballarat. As with all events there is room for improvement and we will aim to make the 2010 event that much bigger and better.

Marketing
The following marketing activities were undertaken for Ballarat Brides 2009:

Direct mail to exhibitors, bulk mail out followed up by a targeted mail out
Specific exhibitors targeted to have them attend Ballarat Brides, called and also personal visits
Website and optimisation
Brochure printing and distribution through letterbox drops, exhibitors and cafes in Ballarat
Posters printed and distributed in Ballarat CBD
Advertising in The Couriers wedding magazine (distributed February/March 2008)
Advertising in the Ararat/Stawell wedding magazine (distributed mid 2008)
The Courier advertising, regular small advertising on the weddings page
Advertising in Unwind for 4 weeks
Front page and full page advertising with Ballarat News
Publicity in The Courier in August and again leading up to the event

The Courier and Ballarat News were by far the most effective forms of advertising that was used
for Ballarat Brides 2009. Additionally referral from family and friends and also the internet were
significant.

Value Adding
o Show bags - Each participant was provided with a showbag who attended Ballarat Brides. Each showbag included the following:
Weddings magazine from The Courier
Fernwood magazine
Visionary events & marketing brochure
Styling voucher from Visionary events & marketing
Hire & Styling referral card from Visionary events & marketing
Chocolate and voucher from Tangles
Voucher from Tell Us About It.
Voucher from Andrew Wilson Photography
Flyer from After Dark Discos
Showbags were donated by The Courier.

o 30 second spiel - These worked well and the MC received a number of spiels on the day also.
o Fashion Parade - The fashion parades provided an excellent overview of new season gowns and evening wear. People were visiting specifically for the fashion parades.

o Entertainment - The live entertainment was good to be able to have music in the background.
o Room set-ups - These were patronized by some people, however signage and people in the rooms may help with promoting this more.

Research findings
o Consumers - were asked when they were paying what their postcode was and how they found out about Ballarat Brides 2009. In addition we collected address and contact details and also planned dates of weddings on the door prize tickets. We also provided visitors with an opportunity to complete a questionnaire, which put them in the running to win a photography package from Andrew Wilson photography.

The following was found:
Visitors to Ballarat Brides 2009 came from:
1. Ballarat

2. Geelong & Melbourne Suburbs

3. Bacchus Marsh, Creswick, Horsham & Warrnambool

4. Beaufort, Bendigo

5. Avoca, Dimboola, Gordon, Kyabram, Maryborough, Mt Gambier, Queensland, Werribbee, Winton, Colac

The majority of visitors were from Ballarat and surrounds. Other significant areas of attendance were: Geelong, Melbourne, Bendigo, Horsham and Creswick (surrounds)
An area of interest was the corridor between Ballarat and Colac in regards to visitation.

The following shows when attendees were planning on getting married as collected from door prize tickets and survey questionnaires
Busiest time for weddings is January – March.
While the majority of brides are planning for weddings within the next 12 months, there is still a large number who are planning for up to 2 years in advance.

The following indicates the top 4 stalls that each attendee visited, according to their door prize tickets:

The most popular stall was Jetset followed by Bridal House Geelong. Also ranking high were Novotel, Yummy Cakes, Allan Bros, After Dark Discos, Mercure, Harold Bentley and Tim Scanlon. This indicates that people were looking for destination information, gowns, venues, cakes, jewelers, entertainment and photographers.

Interestingly survey feedback forms showed that visitors were looking for more variety of make-up, hairdressing, DJ’s, caterers, transport and fashion.

The following indicates the areas of wedding planning that attendees were most interested (on the questionnaire forms they were requested to rank in order of preference from 1-10)

31% Photography

20% Venue Selection

15% Fashion/Clothing

11% Decorative Elements

4% Jewellery, Competitions/door prizes, hair styles, travel, celebrant

3% Make-up

Clearly photography and venue selection were the most important to visitors,followed by fashion and decorative elements. All of these elements were present at Ballarat Brides 2009, however more variety of fashion providers and also decorative elements could be investigated for 2010.

The following are the general comments in relation to Ballarat Brides 2009 as recorded on the surveys:
The Venue information was good
More information on Invites, stationary would be good.
Fantastic wonderful talking with survivors of phoenix and all areas were well planned and
helpful. Great assistance, ideas. Cheers.
Need more makeup artists
Lots of different information and presented really well.
Good Service and friendly helpful.
Very Good
It was very good to get everyone in the same place.
Wish there was caterers here to speak too.
It was really helpful.
Lots of variety.
Car Suppliers
Mostly had time to talk to people because it wasn’t too crowded
Would have liked more make-up artists and hair stylists
Need more dresses

Wonderful setup
Maybe more DJs would be good
Expo was a great help, lots of great info and variety of things to look at
Needed more invitation information
Very informative
Would have loved to see more invitations
Not enough fashion
Whilst fashion parade was on man and lady should have stopped talking and let us listen to music