Kununurra Show, Opening day.

6/10/2019

All the fun of the Kununurra Agriculture Show.

Show goers are planning for another fantastic Kununurra Agriculture Show to be held on Friday the 8th and Saturday the 9th of July 2017. This show is always a great weekend it the Kimberley, and it is a worthwhile event for travellers to that region to fit into their agenda.

On the evening of Saturday the 9th of July, 2017, the place will stat rocking when the local Western Australian renowned blues and roots band Blue Shaddy break out with the music. This will be a return performance, as they wowed the crowds at the Kununurra show last year. Jim McClelland is the singer and and Sandy McClelland plays bass. I have not heard a live bass for ages. Wish I could go this year.

This is an extract from my 2009 travel diary:
Setting up to exhibit at the Kununurra Agriculture Show

Uncovering my exhibition stock, I worked on till late last night and about to set it all up for the opening at 3 pm today.

As I worked on the pre-set up, other exhibitors were arriving. They have driven up from Alice Springs, after exhibiting at the Alice Springs Show last week. They were full of gloomy retail talk, which I took little notice of, having already adapted and stocked heavily with lower priced items, not ones that meet with retail resistance in tough financial times. At 62 years of age, having been born into retail, I have learned to adapt rather than assume buying trends remain the same year after year. I will be featuring two tables of one dollar Items and one table of two dollar value items, and have another large table with items from $3.50 to $10. and my more expensive artwork will be at the back, in a sort of, enter by invitation, area. Any sale of these I'll consider the bonus, not something I have come out depending on or expecting to make, so I have a recession proofed display, this year.

Reg, ready to trade at our art and crafts display at the Kununurra Agriculture Show

The other gloomy news from the exhibitors is how the swine flu is affecting retail at the shows this year. Newspapers are printing editorials asking people not to attend the show and saying things like 75% of people who go will catch the flu as a result. There are cartoons in the papers showing a clown at the show handing a pig to a child, with captions about it being swine flu. Due to these factors, the attendance at the shows are lower than previous years. Again, I'm OK with this; it's not huge takings I need like the amusement park, this is hobby business for Reg and me. If we make the diesel fuel to the next town, we are OK, and I'll do that.

At Alice Springs show, five Aboriginal communities were placed into quarantine, and that made a huge impact on the crowd numbers, and the profitability of the Alice Springs Show as the indigenous Australians are the main clients for some traders. I trade well to a wide range of people, so if they quarantine communities here, I will still do OK, though I would be disappointed. I know they would also be. The aboriginal families know how to enjoy a show and are excellent, friendly visitors to our display. We always involve the children and encourage them to handle and play with the soft toys on display. The parents give us that, 'thank you for treating our children well', look that makes it so worthwhile, and is part of our enjoyment of doing a show. These are pleasures that have little to do with the possible income earned.

Speaking of income, I have to get out there and begin work, now.

It is a small exhibition today, early night close, then I stay up on security duty most of the night, watching over my display. Following that, there is a full-on, huge day and night going through to the wee hours of Sunday morning before I get to fall into bed, after trading for 16 hours straight. Needless to say, this will be my last update until sometime Sunday.

Footnote: That 2009 Kununurra Agriculture Show was a success for us, and it wasn't spoiled by the threatened Swine Flu epidemic. We stayed just ahead of that year's flu season until we got to Tom Price where it had taken effect and did keep quite a few locals home from the Tom Price Show.

These had been a lot of panic that year about that Swine Flu outbreak, and a large scale immunisation effort against the Swine Flu started on Monday 28 September 2009. By that time, Reg and I were recovered from our bout of that flu which we came down with about ten days after we exhibited at the Tom Price Show a couple of weeks after the Kununurra Agriculture Show. In our sixties, at that time, we obviously had good immunity. I'd been ill in 1968/9 with the Hong Kong flu strain which was said to be an avian and swine flu mixture. Perhaps that was why us seniors, were only lightly affected by this 2009 Swine Flu, we had experienced a dose of something similar in the late 1960s.

0 Comments