Despite uncertainty caused by Covid, Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia (HVIA) and its partners managed to not only stage the 2021 Brisbane Truck Show but entice more than 30,000 attendees from around Australia to Australia’s premier on-road transport business and networking event.
What’s more, the show also maintained its strategy to expand beyond the walls of the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre (BCEC) to engage the broader community and share some of the industry’s inspiring stories.
Building on 2019, the 2021 showcase included a raft of activations and parallel events at the South Bank Truck Festival and across the city.
While punters only saw the world-class end product, behind the scenes a massive logistical effort went in to delivering the show – the largest such event held in the southern hemisphere.
At close to 270 exhibitors occupying all three levels of the BCEC, it is the largest event staged at the venue, bar none.
Led by Brisbane Truck Show manager Noelene Bradley, the herculean bump-in task kicked off the weekend before the show, with the initial focus on the trucks and trailers occupying the main halls on the ground level.
More than 1100 vehicles entered the loading docks down a single road access point in the days leading up to the opening. Some stands required up to five trailer loads each!
Over one-third of the trucks carrying freight were semi-trailers requiring an average of 60-120 minutes to unload and reload.
This massive undertaking was handled by Agility Logistics, which was responsible for managing the freight forwarding, dock marshals, road-runners and 10 site managers who were contracted from three different states for 1300 hours day and night.
To handle the large truck movements, around 1000 metres of truck staging on outside roads was controlled by traffic marshals and special police. An additional 16 trailers were utilised for offsite storage.
Once unloaded, the real work began. Approximately 45 forklifts, 12 elevated platforms, six boom lifts, more than 1.5km of rigging and some 12,000 carpet tiles were employed to get everything into place – with the help of 3000 contractors.
Come Sunday, the show’s final day, the mammoth bump out began. Amazingly, before midnight the vast majority of the trucks, trailers and ancillary components were gone.