Gearhouse SA Joins the African Bureau of Conventions

Gearhouse South Africa announces its membership of the African Bureau of Conventions (ABC), a recently established South African, and African Convention Bureau, whose primary aim is to bid and secure new conferences and events for South Africa and Africa.

The African Bureau of Conventions was founded by, and is run by Janine Meyer and Sharon Peetz, high profile individuals in the SA conference and events industry, and with whom the Gearhouse Group as enjoyed a long-standing working relationship, including the World Summit of Sustainable Development in Johannesburg 2002, to date the largest convention ever hosted in Africa.

The organization's aim is to generate additional business in this sector by securing and delivering a wide range of business and commercial events throughout South Africa and the African continent, offering the highest quality and most cost effective delivery solutions for all areas of an event. Currently, it is bidding on 44 international conventions until 2018.

Gearhouse South Africa has branches in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban and is the country's largest technical equipment rental facility. It incorporates eight sister companies, offering a complete range of technical production services, from the design, and conceptualization of an event to the delivery of lighting sound, media, AV and conferencing equipment and construction of stages and sets.

Gearhouse's Cape Town and Johannesburg branch managers, Philip Beardwood and John McDermott, were instrumental in negotiating the ABC membership, which has several levels and involves an element of invitation. The Gearhouse Group will now be ABC's exclusive technical partners.

Beardwood sees the conferencing world as a healthy and expanding market in Africa where Gearhouse can excel with a wide range of expertise, skills and resources. "We want to expand our business in conferencing and exhibitions across the Gearhouse Group" he says, "so ABC is an ideal organization to partner with. We have known Janine for many years and worked together on some world-class projects. Both Janine and Sharon are extremely driven and energetic and ABC offers a fresh commercial approach to business development in this area and in attracting events to South Africa."

Meyer comments, "There is no doubt that Gearhouse is a leader within the events and business tourism industry, with a strong and ethical reputation both nationally and internationally. As ABC only aligns itself with core and strategic partners, we were delighted that Gearhouse has confirmed membership to the African Bureau of Conventions. Our clients will certainly benefit from this, and it will ensure that national and international conventions and events will receive the best service possibly available to ensure the success of their event."

The advantages of being aligned with African Bureau of Conventions will include advance information about upcoming business, which will allow Gearhouse to position itself strategically in the process of offering its range of flexible and diverse rental, staging and presentational solutions. ABC will benefit from having Gearhouse's pool of resources, imagination, and knowledge plus all the latest technology at its disposal when pitching for business.

McDermott says, "We are very pleased to be onboard with ABC. It's a great symbiosis, and we are confident that the organization and all its partners will be highly successful in its goals and achievements."

Peetz states, "As leaders within our respective fields, we feel that this strategic partnership will demonstrate the value of bringing conventions and events to South Africa and Africa. We are delighted that Gearhouse share our vision in securing new events for Africa and ensuring that our clients return year after year."