Design Show Australia (formerly Denfair) has run its first exhibition under the Design Show brand at the Sydney International Convention Centre, bringing premium brands including Schweigen and Sirius in the appliance category, to designers and specifiers.

Design Show was organised by National Media, which acquired Denfair earlier this year.

“It was the first time Design Show Australia has run with the Design Show brand,” National Media’s Ash North told Appliance Retailer.

“We’ve launched a larger kitchen and bathroom zone at Design Show to build more of an all-encompassing design event. Denfair was traditionally furniture and lighting but we’re now moving into sub-brands like kitchen and bathroom for the Kitchen and Bathroom Design Show.

“This year – for the first year – we’re running it under the Design Show brand. It’s an architecture and design event but there’s also project managers and developers, as well as the public. It’s typically for more high-end projects but we’ve got a good mix of design-led product at different price points.

“Moving forward, we hope to have more appliance brands come on board. There’s an appetite from the industry for more kitchen products but this exhibition was more dominated by bathroom. Outdoor also presents a huge opportunity as Australia has such an outdoor culture.”

According to Schweigen co-owner, Anthony Fletcher, the company decided to exhibit at the Design Show as a branding exercise as Schweigen hasn’t had any exposure to design shows for a few years, including during Covid.

“The first two days were open to trade, exposing our product to the designers and architects, which are the type of audience we want to reach, and the third day was open to the public,” he told Appliance Retailer.

“We used our display stand to showcase beautiful kitchen photos, our silent rangehood, new SteelFlex ducting, which is the best-in-market, and new sizes of undermount rangehoods that are 390mm deep by 600mm, 900mm and 1200mm. We also showcased our new black range of rangehoods.

“Silent rangehoods are a niche category so we want to engage more with designers and architects to work with them and better understand what they need to serve their clients. We also have a commercial portal on our website and people who visit the portal have a chance to win a trip for two to Bali for five days.

 It was the first time Arisit presented Sirius at the Design Show and the response was positive with the right calibre of people, according to Arisit national commercial sales manager, Dane Hobson.

The Sirius team: Vincent Cleary, Dane Hobson and Deep Verma.

“We received positive feedback, great questions and the calibre of people was fantastic. We showcased our new integrated downdraft that can be customised to match the kitchen benchtop and new Kite ceiling cassette that complements our range with exciting and eye-catching products,” he told Appliance Retailer.

“The key message we wanted to communicate was that there are rangehood solutions that are functional but also look fantastic. It’s about opening up the market and educating people about what rangehood is right for the consumer.”

Feature image: Schweigen co-owner, Anthony Fletcher and national commercial manager, Ben Thompson.