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Attendance boost at a ‘Far From Ordinary’ show

September 4, 2015  By Dave Harrison


Sept. 4, 2015, Portland, OR — The 2015 Farwest Show promised members of the nursery industry a “Far From Ordinary” trade show experience – and it delivered.

More than 6,000 industry professionals turned out for the three-day expo, which was a 10 per cent jump over 2014, and over 40 new exhibitors also took part.

Farwest was held Aug. 27-29 at the Oregon Convention Centre.

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The show, founded in 1973, is produced by the Oregon Association of Nurseries (OAN), which represents Oregon’s $830 million nursery industry.

“The industry wanted an enhanced trade show experience, so we made that our goal,” OAN executive director Jeff Stone said.

“To market the show, we launched the Far From Ordinary campaign, featuring the unmistakable, hort-headed Farwest Fanatics. We know it connected because advance registrations were way up.

“The people attending told us they enjoyed the new look, but more importantly, they liked what was under the hood. The show now has strong forward momentum, and we hope to continue that momentum in 2016.”

SOLUTION CENTRE FOR GROWERS DEBUTS

This year’s show included the successful debut of the Solution Centre for Growers, featuring 28 mini-seminars right on the show floor.

It also had outstanding exhibitors, with an increased presence of retail goods; compelling seminars with industry experts; interesting nursery and retailer tours; fun networking events such as the Farwest Pub Crawl; and, earlier in the week, the International Trials Conference, which brought plant breeders from all over the world to Portland to discuss trialing standards and to network.

Farwest 2015 featured a free keynote presentation by globally known customer service expert Ron Rosenberg.

Other highly regarded experts also appeared, including Dr. Allan Armitage, Anne Obarski and Lloyd Traven, among many others. They shared new ways the green industry can anticipate and meet evolving customer needs and capitalize on the market opportunities of the future.


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