Fieldays magic brings them in from far ‘n wide
The 49th New Zealand Agricultural Fieldays has officially come to an end with the overall visitor number reaching 133,588, the biggest on record yet.
The Fieldays ran from June 14-17 at Mystery Creek Events Centre, just outside Hamilton and brought visitors from other regions too including quite a few from South Waikato.
Tokoroa’s FIRE n ICE and Tokoroa Engineering 2014 LTD were two businesses among the visitors, who attended the Fieldays.
Lance Felton from Tokoroa FIRE n ICE said this has been their second year attending the popular event and although it was hard work it was ’’interesting,’’ and he plans to return next year,
Felton said they wanted to reinforce their brands and exposure this year and Fieldays was a good place to start.
He said he gets a lot of interest at the Fieldays but it was hard to judge how things were going to turn out.
‘‘You get to meet new people and it gets you out of your comfort zone.’’
He said you get the chance to back your product talking with customers and get confidence in it, as well as broaden your customer base over the central North Island.
John Waldon who works at Tokoroa engineering 2014 LTD, said their business has been coming to Fieldays for 12 years with the intention to let farmers know what they have available and to display their product.
‘‘90 percent of the components are produced in Tokoroa,’’ he said, and gets sold throughout New Zealand.
Waldon said although it is more beneficial for the business to be produce locally made product, cost was not an issue when the idea first rose into question.
He said he wanted to make sure the products were produced locally in a local business, even though he was warned not to call it Tokoroa Engineering due to ‘Tokoroa’s reputation’.
‘‘Well we proved them wrong,’’ he said.
‘‘We sell products all over New Zealand, and more in the South Island then the North.’’
He said ‘‘Mystery Creek in particular has helped grow the company,’’ as it makes people more aware of the business, product and good reputation.