Public’s chance to see latest trends, styles

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 4

Public’s chance to see latest trends, styles

This year’s Canterbury Furniture Show promises to be as successful as last year’s record-breaker. More than 150 retail representatives from all over New Zealand and from Australia will attend the exhibition of the latest styles in furniture and fabrics.

Last year’s show, with more than 50 exhibitors, attracted more than 180 retailers.

This year, more than 50 retailers from the North Island, 40 local retailers, and another 63 from other parts of the South Island have arrived to see what is being offered by New Zealand manufacturers. The displays are mainly of household furniture and furnishing fabrics.

The Canterbury show is one of two major furniture shows in New Zealand, the other being in Auckland. Unlike the Auckland show, however, Christchurch has a comprehensive range of furnishing fabrics from the country’s major fabric wholesalers on display. The organisers support the inclusion of the fabrics because of the “lift” they give to the exhibition and the colour and continuity they lend to it. Although there have been demands on the organisers to open the show to more exhibitors, Mr Doug Jones, the executive officer of the Canterbury

Manufacturers’ Association who is co-ordinating the show again this year, said there were no plans to extend it yet.

“We prefer to keep a ‘tight’ show rather than a wider one which would be harder for us to control. “Most of the exhibitors have supported us from the beginning and they always get first access to the display stands.”

Manufacturers must be members of the Furniture Manufacturers’ Federation for 12 months before they are eligible to exhibit at the show, he said. “While it remains difficult to get a place at the show we can insist on a high quality of display which is of benefit to everybody — the retailers, exhibitors, the public, and the whole industry in general,” said Mr Jones. This year there are 43 exhibitors, most of them from the country’s two major furniture manufacturing centres: Auckland and Christchurch. They are using almost 25,000 sq. ft of display area throughout the Town Hall. A feature introduced at last year’s show which will be held again this year is a forum dicussion for members from both sides of the trade. The discussions will be held on Thursday and this year will centre on transport problems encountered

by the furniture industry, manufacturers. wholesalers. and retailers. Suggestions have been made in the north that a country the size of New Zealand is not big enough for two major furniture shows in one year. “The Auckland group doesn’t really think" that Christchurch needs its own exhibition, but our show — which started in a small way nine years go — has gone ’from strength to strength,” said the chairman of the furniture trade group of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association (Mr K. C. Watson). The first Canterbury show was mounted by 17 exhibitors with furniture displays in three hotel lounges, using onlv 3000 sq. ft of space. “There has been a suggestion that Auckland and Christchurch hold national shows on alternate years, but we are quite happy with our own show,” said Mr Watson. “We have an excellent venue in the Town Hall — as good as anything else in the world — and there is nothing to compare with it in Auckland.

“We are quite happy with the two separate shows in one year — and most of the Auckland manufacturers exhibit at our show anyway,” he said.