Lusaka Agriculture and Commercial Show opens its doors to public

The Agriculture and Commercial show which runs from 29th July to 3rd August 2015 under the theme “Innovation beyond the golden jubilee” yesterday opened its gates at around 8:00 hrs in the morning with people queuing up as early as 06:00 hrs. The 89th Agriculture and Commercial show has finally opened its gates to show-goers and exhibitors.

The Agriculture and Commercial show which runs from 29th July to 3rd August 2015 under the theme “Innovation beyond the golden jubilee” yesterday opened its gates at around 8:00 hrs in the morning with people queuing up as early as 06:00 hrs.

A gate ticket salesman, Oty Lumamba said in an interview with the Lusaka Star that the turn out from show goers was impressive especially that it was the first day of a six-day event.

 “People started queuing up as early as 6:00 … the tickets started selling at 8:00 hrs and before 12:00 hrs over 300 tickets and 20 adult budges were sold at my gate – gate one.
“Most people start showing up on Friday when the show is in full swing but surprisingly today, a good number have showed up,” he said.

Meanwhile, most exhibitor stores like Bata and National Milling to mention but a few were ready to welcome members of the public while a few of them were still working on their stands.

Bata sales manager Charles Phiri was optimistic that this year’s show turnout will be higher than that of last years’ adding that the store stands a great deal to benefit from such a turnout.

“In this year’s exhibition, we want to attract customers and thus have reduced the price of some selected items by 15 percent,” he revealed.

For some stores, business on the first day was not good, but they remained hopeful that business would improve as the show goes on. National Milling sales manager Nelson Mvula said business on the first day was not good.

He added, “National Milling is always here but we have decided to take advantage of the show and maximize our profits. However, we have no promotions running this year.”

Mr. Mvula added that the sales were expected to improve as the days progressed noting that the Milling Company expected nothing less than 50 percent increase in sales.