Dr Vivian Edwards, President of RNA, was quoted, “I attribute (the poor crowds) not to the outbreak of the flu but to the perception of people that you are more likely to get infected but if that’s the perception it’s a very erroneous one”.

If that was the case, why was there a misperception? Is it OUR fault to percieve the EKKA as an event for catching the flu or was it the PR and Marketing companies fault to not sell the EKKA as THE place to be during August 7-18, as opposed to the place NOT TO BE?

I cringe at the thought of the big price hike next year for parents and children to fork out to pay for the exhibitors, sponsors who decided that it wasn’t the people’s fault for not turning up, but instead the organisers.

This year there were two main fashion events which I was hoping to cover here on my website, the EKKA Coffee Club parades and the Mercedes Benz fashion festival.

Unfortunately I was not permitted a media pass to either events as this site isn’t classified by PR or marketing companies as a “bona-fide” media outlet. It amazes me the ignorance of so called “marketing” companies to deny the channel of independent internet publications. Is there not a market for selling the EKKA or Fashion online?

There is a misconception that internet websites/blogs are not an important enough channel to consider them individually to allow to document the event. I’ve documented a fair wack of fashion events and the EKKA previously which is still getting a lot traffic. Most notable was my documentation of the NRA Fashion award finals last year, QUT graduate parades, MSIT graduate parades, plus several other key events in Brisbane. Not only did I document them, but i’ve generated a lot of traffic for those event websites. Try searching for the following keywords in google typically I rank in the top 5.

“nra fashion parade”
“qut fashion parade”
“msit fashion parade”

Most fashion labels I have documented have also benefit from my internet marketing skills, where in some instances my article post about their label ranks higher than their company site for their label name search term.

Here are some traffic stats:

• During the month of July, I had a total 49,707 unique visitors to christianbowman.com.
• More than 17,397 of those visitors landed on my site searching for EKKA or Fashion related content.
• July was a fairly uneventful month in terms of online fashion and EKKA traffic. If I was to use the percentages from the EKKA and fashion season last year where that traffic was at 65%, then I could forecast that during the same season this year I would reach attract over 32,000 unique visitors.

Also note that whilst July was a high traffic month, it isn’t out of the ordinary, i’ve had steady growth over the year, during June this site attracted 43,087 unique visitors.

So my point is, how can anyone in the fashion industry not have me document them when traffic and leads are abundant on this site. I even have a large subscriber base on this site, I know the names of the people who look at my site, I value their support for the EKKA and Fashion events and so should the event organisers!

Anyways, even though I’m a bit disappointed in being restricted in documenting key events in Brisbane, I am still keen supporter of the EKKA and the EKKA fashion parades.

I would hate to see them disappear in the future as organisers refuse to do something different in marketing the event.

Here are the details – ONE DAY TO GO!

Brisbane EKKA
RNA Showgrounds – August 9-18, 2007

Gregory Terrace
Bowen Hills
Brisbane Qld 4006

Ph: 07 3852 1831
Email: enquiries@ekka.com.au

I got a call during the week from an editor of The Daily Mercury, a newspaper in Mackay to use one of my photos for an article on a fashion design student from QUT. They requested three photos for consideration from a shoot I did at the QUT Fashion Graduate parade in 2006.

I’ll post the PDF of the article when I get a chance later… or will I?

A couple of months ago, I was approached by the agency who is doing the EKKA campaigns to purchase some fashion photography from a parade I did.

Today I saw the photo at a bus shelter on Gregory Terrace in Spring Hill, then again on College Rd on some street banners heading towards Hale St.

Here is the photo that they chose, it wasn’t one of my best photos, but it did look good with some graphics around it.

Anyways, I was definitely curious as to how it would be used and I think it looks great what Axis Campaigns have done with it.

Some photos taken on the final day of the AGForce Wool & Leather Fashion Parade are now in my photo gallery. I went to get pics of the parade in the Coffee Club pavilion but they were too pompus and didn’t allow me to shoot. I shall not drink coffee at the coffee club for being mean to me. Instead I will drink instant coffee at the wonderful offices at AGForce.. if they have offices, maybe its home made tea in a shed- i’d much prefer that knowing they will let me take a photo.

I went to the Ekka Race day at Eagle Farm yesterday and decided to take my camera to take some photos of the fun. I came in with a hand full of cards to advertise a little bit but found that wasn’t enough and ran out during the day.

It was a very bright day which makes it hard for shooting, especially with digital photography. Whilst I did get a few decent shots, if i had an assistant handy with a reflector board it would have been great working with natural light. However I didnt and had to fight the effects of shadow and silhouetting. Excuses excuses…

Anyways, please feel free to comment on this post by registering on this site and posting a comment. I’d love to hear about your day at the races and about the photos I took. Otherwise just send me comments via my “Contact me” page.

Thanks