Imtram and Ausrail 2022 – Is this the future of exhibitions?
Sydney, Australia February 2022: The much anticipated, relocated and delayed Ausrail Plus Conference and Exhibition took place in Sydney at the International Convention Centre this month. Planning commenced for IMTRAM’s presence at this showcase early in 2021 with the anticipation of an easing of the pandemic.
With the luxury of extra planning time, my clients, IMTRAM and I took the opportunity to re-evaluate the contribution that the business could and should make to events such as Ausrail with discussions that centred not only around the economic benefits and impacts, the chance to build relationships, but also the environmental impacts that creating an engaging presence at the exhibition would have.
With a renewed sense of focus and determination, I worked with IMTRAM to help the team align the IMTRAM company values with the expected positive outcomes from their attendance at the conference and the winner from the new plan is a clear first to the environment with no compromise to the business and our partners.
In an innovative approach, traditional trade show installations were rejected in favour of a custom designed and built, 100% recyclable stand created entirely from cardboard. Tobias Horrocks from Fold Theory has created many environmentally sustainable designs worldwide that are strong, functional and importantly recyclable and worked with us to create the perfect backdrop to showcase IMTRAM and their rail solutions complete with pantographs, train and jack stands! With an intention to focus energy on creating conversations that inspire stakeholders to take a closer look at Imtram as a sustainable alternative to the larger players in the industry.
When general Manager, Sonia Whiteman was interviewed at the recent Ausrail Plus and asked about the innovative cardboard stand created for the event. Sonia was excited to share her insights on IMTRAM's belief in living up to the values established by her family company in over 40 years servicing the rail industry. Sustainability and the environment are considered in many of IMTRAM's product and service offerings and the IMTRAM team were proud to be able to showcase their commitment to these values with the construction of their 100% recyclable stand this year.
“We want people to understand that Imtram are about customer solutions, not sales funnels and this belief has led us to take a simpler approach to our clients” said Sonia Whiteman, General Manager of IMTRAM.
IMTRAM has built key, global relationships to establish authorised service centres for their partners including Hanning & Kahl, Secheron, NextSense, Windhoff, ZTR and others and would usually consider adding attention-grabbing, large-scale products to their display. With a new determination to live up to their established environmental values, these bulky products were left in the showroom in favour of low transport miles and replaced with interactive displays.
At the end of the conference, the stand was flat-packed onto a single pallet and taken away to be re-purposed, recycled and reused.
