Increasing revenue and sparking new interest in sponsorship were the leading objectives when the New South Wales Royal Fire Service Association (RFSA) turned to Arinex in 2010 to manage its biennial state conference. At the time, the association was struggling to raise revenue from exhibit sales to cover costs and it had not found sponsorship to have worked.

Arinex helped RFSA establish a more commercially-minded model, launching an innovative outdoor exhibit to offer an alternative to the traditional indoor shell scheme exhibits. Part of the appeal of the new outdoor exhibit was the introduction of interactive workshops and live equipment demonstrations.

To complement the new exhibition model, Arinex also designed and introduced a new sponsorship program to give a clear added value to participating sponsors.

RFSA now generates revenue well above the years prior to 2010 and the exhibition has become a firm highlight of the conference program. Indoor exhibition space alone has grown a huge 388 per cent since 2010 (going from 72m2 to 351m2 in 2018), while this year’s outdoor exhibit measured an additional 1,900m2. The new sponsorship model has also been a success, not only encouraging upward spend from existing companies but helping to attract new corporate business to the event.