Vegetarian Expo
New Zealand’s biggest vegetarian event was held on October 9th with a record 5000 people attending. After experiencing a difficult year with the devastating earthquakes and difficulties of a city with no CBD, the loss of our office and all our resources, the Christchurch Vegetarian Centre is proud that the Expo still went ahead and was such a success.
We were lucky that we had perfect weather for the day, not too hot and not too cold. We thought the Expo might be smaller this year with the relocation and loss of a number of businesses due to the quakes, but in fact the Expo was as big as ever, with 41 stalls including 10 newcomers. These filled the main hall with Food Stalls, our own Christchurch Vegetarian Centre community group stalls, Businesses of Interest to Vegetarians including LUSH cosmetics, our local importer of Linda McCartney products and Blue Coconut, who promoted natural refined coconut oil. Then we had a Vegetarian Owned Businesses section and Not-For-Profit organisations. SAFE (Save Animals From Exploitation) and Cat Rescue were some animal-themed groups among these.
In addition to the stalls, the Expo featured seven cookery demonstrations and seven workshop presentations on various topics, a Kids’ Zone and a bouncy castle, musical entertainment from DJ Luke Skywalka alternating with Praesto String Quartet, a film room, a sausage sizzle and ice cream sales. There was something to please everybody, the atmosphere buzzed and people seemed very happy.
We hope that our Expo encouraged people to think of animals and vegetarianism. Anna van den Bosch, Events Co-ordinator.
- Organised by: Christchurch Vegetarian Centre