Following on from our story on the Business Events Grants last week we have had a chat with Austrade and they will be responding to our questions soon.

One answer I can share now relates to what happens to grants if the event is cancelled.  Non-refundable expenses can be kept (eg no-refundable deposits for travel, accommodation, etc). And the money that is returned? – it goes back into consolidated revenue! i.e. it is not reinvested into the scheme or into Business Events.

One thing I found out is that the figures quoted for events such as Land Forces are skewed because some grants were for multiple events and Austrade could not separate how much was for each so those grants were listed under one event.

Here are a few examples that we have pulled from the Australian Government Grant Connect website that lists all grants made by the Federal Government.

AVI Pty Ltd received $107,343.50 to attend the Land Forces and MilCIS events in order to promote their brand and products to the defence industry.

SCHIEBEL PACIFIC – $165,000.00 to attend the Land Forces 2021 and Avalon Airshow to educate potential new customers on their Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) and services.

ELBIT SYSTEMS OF AUSTRALIA – $275,000.00 for their Land Forces Expo and Avalon International Air Show 2021 exhibitor project.

Note that $250,000 was the maximum allowed per grant but it looks like they could get more by spreading it over two events.

The two largest grants associated with Land Forces only were:

Saab Australia – $163,849.40 their pitch was: Saab Australia participation at the Land Forces 2021 event is a core element of our communications strategy for the Land domain. As a major supplier of ground combat weapons, ground based air defence, deployable health and camouflage systems to the Australian Army the exhibition presents a key opportunity to showcase potential upgrades for existing capabilities and demonstrate new technology to meet requirements for major procurement programmes. The event is also an important opportunity to engage with defence industry to build our AIC for current and future projects. Saab will have an exhibition stand with demonstrators, virtual and mixed reality systems to showcase our capabilities to key Army, defence and industry stakeholders.

InVeris Training Solutions – $162,131.20 and their pitch: InVeris Training Solutions Pty Ltd will attend & exhibit at the Land Forces Defence Expo in Brisbane in June 2021. This exhibition will announce our rebranding & diversification of the business from being a Virtual Training & Simulation Technology provider to that of a Live Fire Training and equipment provider for the Australian and APAC Defence and Law Enforcement markets. We intend to showcase to the market our Live Fire product line as well as demonstrate new innovate virtual training technologies to existing and new customers. This event forms part of a wider marketing strategy to grow and diversify our business in Australia and the Asia

Interesting to note these two businesses are categorised as “Small Business”. I wonder how many other small businesses would spend over $325,000 on a single exhibition stand (the grants cover up to 50% of cost to exhibit).

This one was also interesting – Yaffa Media Pty Ltd received $16,500.00 to attend Land Forces to launch the digital transformation provides a superior information service to Australian Defence suppliers seeking to better engage with The Australian Defence Force and it’s capability directives. Staff will be producing daily news content on the products and innovation shown at Land Forces.

I think what that means is they were promoting digital distribution of newsletters and magazines.

But all within the rules!