But that is a decrease from the 11,000 visitors to the expo last year - and a little more than half of the 19,000 who attended in 2013. Today we spoke with BCCI's marketing and PR manager about their observations - and whether the weather impacted their turnout.

Andrew Usher, Marketing & PR Manager, BCCI
"I believe every year we strive to ensure that the visitor experience is different and new and wholesome so for us that 10,000 mark really is a testament to the fact that regardless of the humidity or anything else that's happening on the weekend, people still want to come out and experience the deals, experience the entertainment and you know, expo is a part of the September experience and I believe people look forward to it every year."

Reporter
"In 2022, I believe there were like 13,000, last year it was 11,000, and now we're at 10,000. And this is a trend it seems, but what do you think, apart from the weather I would say, is contributing to this downward trend?"

Andrew Usher, Marketing & PR Manager, BCCI
"I think people are getting used to participating in expos, attending different expos, especially the prevalence of the popup shops, I think we can't forget that, the popup shops, it's almost every other weekend, almost every weekend it feels like you're seeing a popup shop and some of the same exhibitors that we have at our event are at those events as well, even if it's an event that might be happening for a special time of the month. But these are the things we factor and we look at it and at the end of the day we are trying to improve the consumer experience as well as the business experience for our exhibitors."

"This year we even included a micro pavilion area specifically for micro and small business to be able to highlight and feature their products and services as well as we had a secondary stage to ensure that both sides of the stadium had some type of live entertainment that was an attraction for them to come to the event."

We also asked Usher if they would consider holding the expo in the evenings or nights. He said he's seen the suggestions and they're working on how to incorporate them.

Andrew Usher, Marketing & PR Manager, BCCI
"We've had suggestions from both exhibitors and visitors from over the past couple years and we've been taking those suggestions and trying to implement them as best as possible. I think we have to look at the event holistically and realize that there are several different types of exhibitors and sometimes there are exhibitors who experience different peaks in sales throughout the day. So we had one exhibitor tell us that they're peak in sales was from 9 to 12 and from 2 to 4. And then there's also exhibitors whose sales peaked from 12 all the way to 6pm. So it's trying to find the right balance between those two and it's not to say we're not considering it. We've been seeing the same social media posts as well and we're taking all that into consideration and trying to, we're going to meet after this, we have basically a postmortem that we do every year to basically go over what went well, what didn't go well, what we can improve on. And I think for next year, because planning starts from today for next year, we're going to meet our executive committee for the expo and try to figure out how we can implement these suggestions as best as possible."

"You never know, 2025 might look completely different, it may even take a bit and go into 2026 to see the difference but at the end of the day it's a work in progress and that's what we're doing."