The first week in July saw the Sandton Convention Centre taken over by thousands of visitors coming to see the revamped Markex 2016, Specialised Exhibitions Montgomery’s targeted promotional product expo. Taking place on 6 and 7 Julythis year, the focused event attracted 6,444 attendees, with more than 3,500 visiting the trade only section of the show.
The show attracted 323 international visitors from 16 mostly African countries, including 112 from Botswana alone.
“The visitor statistics emphasise the changing face of the Markex brand – in its 30th year in 2017,” says Joshua Low, Event Director at Specialised Exhibitions Montgomery. “Our aim was to transform the expo into more of a value-added, purely promotional product event, and our post show analysis proves that we are on track.
“As part of our value-added offering this year, the Markex free-to-attend seminar theatre proved to be extremely popular, with a number of sessions packed beyond capacity,” he explains. “Here we aimed to provide attendees with practical, yet easily executable, advice and expertise, as well as a view on trends within the marketplace. The most popular topics included ‘Leading promotional trends for 2016’, ‘Marketing 101: the fundamentals to a smashing marketing plan’, and ‘How to run a small business’.”
Low adds that the underlying theme for the 2016 show was innovation, something that the more than 140 exhibitors took to heart. “We were most pleased to see more than 40 new companies exhibiting at this year’s show, bringing fresh, new products and services to the fore. Feedback from many of our visitors was that the show was extremely informative.”
Specialised Exhibitions Montgomery also used the 2016 show to launch the newest addition to its expo portfolio, Madex 2017, which will be co-located with next year’s Markex show. While Markex 2017 will become a purely promotional, trade event, Madex will appeal to the broader marketing field with a strong focus on intelligent, relevant content, featuring the best in South Africa’s advertising, design, digital and social media, direct marketing, public relations, events sectors, amongst others.
For more information on next year’s event, please visit www.markex.co.za and www.madex.co.za.
