The Agri-Trade Equipment Exposition in Red Deer will be a bit shorter this year.

Since 1984, the show has ran Wednesday through Saturday in the second week of November, but Show Manager, Dave Fiddler says, the show will now run just Wednesday to Friday.

"For a number of years, we've had exhibitors comment the four day show was a tough time frame for them. It meant giving up two weekends for their sales staff, and extra time away from home, and just felt that from the leads generated over a four day show, that if we went to a three day show, we would still have the same amount of attendance over three days as we did over four days, and reduce a lot of the costs for exhibitors."

Fiddler says, by reducing the costs for exhibitors, they will be able to make the exhibitors return on investment even better.

He says, as far as exhibitors at the event, they're sold out and have a significant waiting list.

Survey results showed 71 per cent of their exhibitors were in favour of shortening the show by one day, Fiddler says.

"We started two years ago here now, with a formal survey that we use to benchmark, and we'll continue to do that survey of exhibitors consistently every year. This coming year, we intend to survey the attendees to the show. We're going to use some different methods to gather feedback from the people that attend the show, and what they would like to see."

In a release, Agri-Trade announced this year's dates for the show will be Wednesday to Friday, November 7,8, and 9, and in 2019 the show will run November 6,7 and 8.

Fiddler says, there is one group of people they are concerned will be affected by this change.

"The one group we we're concerned about is those farmers that have off-farm employment. Quite often, Saturday would be the only day that they could come. So, they're going to have to adjust their schedule."

Fiddler says, he's pretty sure the new length of the show will carry on after 2019, but they are always open to feedback from their exhibitors.

"Agri-Trade of course is one of the flagship agricultural events in the Province of Alberta, and we are very fortune in attracting visitors from all over Western Canada, and exhibitors from the United States and Canada, so it's a show that's on the move and growing well."

 

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