Hundreds of industry professionals were in attendance from all over Australia, New Zealand, and even the world. The dynamic Jewellery Industry Virtual Fair caught the eye of some of the globe’s most influential jewellery experts who all wanted to be a part of this industry initiative.
Launched in October 2020, the Jewellery Industry Virtual Fair went live over two days and attracted close to a thousand industry members for its first event. The second fair wrapped up on March the 13th after being live for three days, as requested by many guests of the first fair who wanted more time to explore what was on offer online. The Jewellery Industry Virtual Fair, replicating a real live fair, online, gave guests jewellery entertainment along with exhibitors and experts to build their business, over three days.
Digital Enhancements
When discussing the virtual fair with event organisers, their goals have been to keep pushing and advancing the Jewellery Industry. Providing it with a digital platform to connect world wide, is the perfect way to do this with more and more businesses adapting to technology. The virtual fair offered exhibitors the ability to not only connect face to face with guests, but to have a significant online presence and marketing exposure before and during the fair. Connecting with multiple thousands of industry members, the fair organisers were able to put suppliers in front of their customers every day during the promotion period of the event. During the fair itself, suppliers could upload and share catalogues, products, videos, PDFs and more, whilst connecting live and chatting to their guests in real time.
Global attendance from the world best
Providing more than just product, the virtual fair brought in guests from all over the world, including from Paris, London, Thailand, Milan and Canada. Impressed with the virtual fair and keen to be involved, industry experts joined the event via video to chat with guests and share their knowledge.
The founder of The Futurist, Paola De Luca, discussed jewellery trends globally, including the need for designers to consider more fluid gender cues when designing for younger generations. Sustainable and environmentally conscious designs also played a role in the trend predictor’s presentation. Paolo is also well-known for helping industry identify some of the most significant jewellery trends globally.
With jewellery being such a visually reliant product, the need for businesses to include a strong social media strategy in their business is a must, so guests were delighted to be joined live by Katerina Perez, an Instagram influencer with over 340,000 followers.
Live from Canada, fair guests were joined by Branko Deljanin who gave us insights and knowledge into the future of lab grown diamonds and what technology advancements are on their way.
And last but by no means least, the JIVF was joined by Alessio Boschi, world famous Italian jewellery designer, who shared his design process with fair guests. Creating magical collections, Alessio stepped guests through what inspiration he takes and how he incorporates this into his designs.
Global leaders meet to build
For the first time, the JIVF brought together a panel of industry leaders, including: Gaetano Cavalieri, CIBJO president; Jo Tory, JAA president; Kathryn Wyatt, federal publicity and marketing officer at GAA; and Rami Baron, Q Report CEO. The panel, hosted by event organiser Laura Moore, discussed the future of the jewellery industry. Drawing on the industry’s need to embrace technology and consider its evolving consumer, the panel also highlighted the industry’s need for transparency and honesty in all parties.
Connecting the Australian industry with the world, JIVF event organisers were honoured to have such esteemed guests share their insights and knowledge with our members.
100% representative
With guests from all over Australia, from each buying group and each industry association, the JIVF was a completely united fair, offering guests the ability to see and hear from all associations under one roof. The JIVF also brought together jewellery retailers and manufacturers as the first ever online benc jewellers championships took place. Live over 15 hours, four bench jewellers challenged themselves to make a piece of jewellery whilst live streaming their bench and progress to the JIVF. Jewellers were given platinum and 18ct yellow gold from Chemgold and a stunning aquamarine from ColAus Emeralds to create their piece.
The fair welcomed over 300 individual guests to the platform with hundreds of hours spent by guests browsing through exhibitors’ booths, the stages, and viewing presentations, videos and the live bench challenge. Guest experience was rated highly at 8 out of 10, with 61 percent of guests finding the platform easy to navigate.
Guests were asked what their favourite element of the fair was and 33 percent of guests said they loved being able to connect with people worldwide, 16 percent loved the ability to access fair specials and 17 percent really enjoyed the stage presentations.
With the state of Covid in Australia moving to a more predictable level, the team at the Jewellery Industry Fair are excited to launch the first Industry Hybrid event! In August 2021, the Jewellery Industry Fair will take place in Melbourne and fuse the leading edge technology brought to the market, with traditional fair experiences for the first Hybrid Jewellery Fair.
To find out more about the Jewellery Industry Fair in Melbourne, head to:
www.jewelleryindustryfair.com