COVID-19 escalation in Australia forces AFTA to cancel trade show

This year’s Australian Fishing Trade Association (AFTA) tackle show has been cancelled. The next show will be held in August 2022.

The three-day event was scheduled to begin on July 8th at Sydney’s Gold Coast Convention Centre (GCCC), but AFTA says recent border closures in response to COVID-19 have forced its hand.

Speaking in a video announcement, AFTA President Michael Starkey said: “The evolving COVID situation has led to the border closure to Greater Sydney, Central Coast, Blue Mountains, Wollongong and the Shellharbour areas. This has forced our hand.

“This area represents 46% of current exhibitors and 33% of retailers. We made the call early to allow exhibitors and retailers time to amend their respective plans. We have been able to negotiate with the GCCC (pictured) to transfer our booking to August 2022. We’ll confirm the dates shortly.

“We have been able to do this without any cancellation penalties being applied to AFTA and would like to thank the GCCC for working with us and making this an easy transition. We wish all our members a safe and strong season of trade ahead and will stay in touch with regular updates. We look forward to reconnecting in 2022.”

The 2020 AFTA show was cancelled due to COVID, but planned to return this year with the last day open to the public.