Semaine Britannique en Tunise
Palais de Congres
7-11 Mai 1990
In March 1990 we had organised an all British trade fair in Casablanca of which I have already posted. It was a tremendously successful event for the exhibiting companies but also for Promotor and especially our Dave Stagg who pulled it all together. It was always planned as a North African double event and in May we found ourselves in Tunisia. Although not as large and imposing as the Casablanca exhibition it was nevertheless another feather in Dave’s cap.
I flew out at the beginning of May to set things up and Dave ‘Little Dave’ Lloyd drove a lorry down from the UK with exhibits. We also had two’ containers brought in overland from the exhibition in Morocco. One contained all the standfitting material belonging to George Stavaros, our Cypriot standfitter whilst the other had some exhibits and the scaffolding and the large lighting/flag boxes. These were handled by a Moroccan transport company.
The event was to be held in the Palais de Congress which was a large easily accessible building whilst our hotel was a modern building near by. George flew in from Cyprus with three men but they dossed down somewhere less expensive. Our local agent sorted out the customs formalities and provided labour as and when it was required.
We had a few big name companies exhibiting such as JCB with their big yellow things and British Gas who where involved in oil exploration. Hawker Siddley brought along a hot air ballon but I think they were trying to sell something a bit more high tech to the Tunisians than that. Gave Little Dave and I the chance to fly with Hawker Siddley though.
For Little Dave and I this show was a doddle. The biggest job we had was erecting the scaffold towers and craning the boxes on top. We also handled the exhibits but we weren’t overstretched. It was all so relaxing compared to shows like the Baghdad or Tehran Fairs. Dave Stagg flew in with his wife Marchien and we had some British bigwig together with some high ranking Tunisians declare the ‘Britain in Tunisia’ event open and that was that. Little Dave and I had plenty of time to laze about until the event closed five days later.
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