Urban Rituelle’s Showstopping Melbourne Trade Fair

At Urban Rituelle, every trade fair is an exciting opportunity to connect with our wonderful retail partners and showcase our latest fragrances & collections. This year’s Melbourne Trade Fair was particularly special as we celebrate 25 years exhibiting in the gift & homewares trade shows.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at our journey leading up to the event, the setup & build process, and the incredible response we received.

Setting the Stage: Our Setup Journey

Our journey to the Melbourne Trade Fair began a week before the show. Our dedicated warehouse team meticulously packed all the samples, catalogues, and our stand into large crates for shipment to Melbourne. On Thursday, two days before the show started, Scott and our warehouse manager Haps, took an early 7 AM flight to Melbourne to begin the setup.

Building the stand is a comprehensive process that takes about a day. It involves laying the floor, building the walls, and setting up the shelving units and lights. Once the stand was built, our stock was carefully placed on the shelves, ready for the visual merchandising team to add the finishing touches.

This year, we faced the added excitement of retrieving a missing box of glass cloche domes from a huge 3PL warehouse. We ordered these beautiful glass dome from our friends at ISAlbi, and to ensure they made it to the stand on time, we took a taxi to northern Melbourne to pick them up. Navigating the largest warehouse we’ve ever seen to locate 1 missing box was quite an adventure! Once back in the CBD, we dropped off our bags and I headed to the florist for my next project.

Flower Power: Bringing Our Stand to Life

A visit to Azalea florist at the South Melbourne Market is a tradition for me. They are just five minutes away from the Melbourne Exhibition Centre and offer a fantastic selection of fresh flowers. I took one of each hand cream box to the florist to colour match the individual flowers for each fragrance. Inspired by our Japanese distributors' stunning display at a recent press conference in Tokyo, I aimed to create floral arrangements that reflect the beautiful & unique colours of our Apotheca home fragrance packaging.

Spending the afternoon arranging the flowers, products and adding final touches to the stand is one of my happiest moments, when I am in “Flow”. The way our stand looks is incredibly important to me, and I find immense joy in setting up our products in a visually appealing manner. It’s my happy place, where I feel completely in my element.

Showtime Begins: The Excitement Unfolds

On Friday night, after a day of setting up, we headed back to our apartment, stopping for a quick drink on the way. We relaxed in the pool, spa, and steam room, eagerly anticipating the start of the trade fair on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning arrived & we headed to the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, ready for day one. The response to our collections and display was overwhelming, filling me with immense pride. Lots of gasps & ohhhs & ahhhs!! 

Throughout the day, we reconnected with long-term customers who have become dear friends and met new customers excited to introduce Urban Rituelle into their businesses. Our wonderful sales team from all over Australia, along with our head office team, worked together seamlessly with lots of fun & laughter throughout the day.

Success Stories: Raising a Toast

On Saturday night, we celebrated the successful first day and our 25 years of exhibiting at trade shows with a celebratory cocktail alongside some of our sales team. Trade show season is one of the most exciting times for our team. It’s the culmination of six months of hard work developing new collections, fragrances, packaging, and marketing strategies.

Wrapping Up & A Glimpse into What’s Next

Tuesday night marked the end of the trade fair as we packed everything away. The samples and stand were carefully packed into their crates and shipped back to Sydney. It’s a huge team effort, and I couldn’t do it without our incredible team, including Jodie in design, Alana in product development & inventory management, Kim, our office manager and Katie in customer care. The team in our warehouse Haps, Penny & Alex, are just as fabulous, making sure that all the samples are meticulously packed & arrive in perfect condition.

Thank you to everyone who visited us at the Melbourne Trade Fair. For those who couldn’t make it, we are putting together a virtual trade fair experience so you can feel like you’re walking through our award-winning stand. While we return exhausted and it takes a few days to recover, the event is a fantastic team bonding experience and a wonderful opportunity to strengthen relationships with our customers.

We are thrilled to celebrate this incredible milestone of being in the industry for 25 years.

Until we see you all in February 2025,

Leanne xxx