ACM Agri Events wraps up Aon AgQuip for 2024 the biggest event on the field days calendar and announced the event date for 2025
The biggest field day on the events calendar, Aon AgQuip held at Gunnedah NSW drew large crowds each day to see the latest release big farm equipment ready for next season.
It’s the final event on this year’s ACM Agri Events calendar, following AgSmart Connect in Tamworth NSW in March and Elders FarmFest at Toowoomba QLD in June 2024.
Dates for next year’s field day events were also announced, with Elders FarmFest 2025 running from 3 to 5 June and Aon AgQuip from 19 to 21 August 2025.
FarmFest is marking its 50th anniversary next year, and planning is already well underway to celebrate this significant milestone.
Aon AgQuip 2024 event managers advised how more than 50,000 visitors passed through the gates and said that the more than 2500 exhibitors received good interest across a range of products and services.
Some big names were also in attendance, including NSW Premier, The Hon Chris Minns MP, and NSW Minister for Agriculture The Hon Tara Moriarty MP who joined the field days celebrations on Thursday.
They dropped by several of the exhibitors stands at the 2024 event, meeting many attendees who stopped to say ‘hello’ and even enjoying one of AgQuip’s famous steak sandwiches, cooked by Calrossy Anglican School students volunteering on the Shorthorn breeders’ stand.
According to Craig Chapman, ACM Agri General Manager, “It’s been another busy, but very successful field day season for our ACM Events team and we couldn’t be prouder of the outstanding outcomes for our exhibitors, and also for the industry.
“With our three events showcasing the latest and the best within the agriculture sector, and generating so much interest in what our producers and agribusinesses are achieving.
“Our field days continue to attract big crowds and the interest of thousands of businesses from right across Australia, showing the value they see in being in front of such a large number of visitors. They recognise it’s great exposure for their business and that’s a tremendous endorsement for this event.”
More than 50,000 visitors passed through the gates of Aon AgQuip, near Gunnedah NSW this year, on par with previous years’ crowds. Craig said attendance levels remained strong year-on-year, with a visitor survey this year showing more than half of attendees lived within 200km of the AgQuip site and about 15% travelling from greater than 400km away to attend.
Three quarters of visitors have been to AgQuip three times, or more and more than half of attendees this year were typically at the event to make a particular purchase.
For those catering for the big crowds, it was a busy year. An example was the Shorthorn steak sandwich stand, commandeered by the lucky Calrossy students who got to meet the NSW Premier, The Hon Chris Minns MP.
Calrossy students went through more than 2300 steaks, 25kg of sausages and 330 loaves of bread. It’s also an example of the enormous number of volunteers who help make AgQuip such a big success each year, with 80 students helping at that particular stand across the three days.
Over at the AgSmart Connect Hub, where ACM continues to invest in future farming, attendees had access to two days’ of seminar presentations from some of the nation’s leading agri-innovation experts on the likes of carbon farming, remote monitoring, telecommunications, IoT and data.
Anyone interested in seeing any of the sessions can revisit the presentations by clicking this link.
“ACM Agri Events is committed to the ongoing growth and evolution of Australia’s thriving agriculture industry and is so proud to be able to contribute with the staging of these important field day events, with a real focus on continued investment in the critical agri-tech sector,” ACM Agri General Manager Craig Chapman added.
