Last month the Flower Council of Holland traveled  'Down South' to Atlanta, Georgia, for The Special Event, an annual tradeshow that brings together leading event planners and floral professionals from across the USA and the world.

The Flower Council of Holland enjoyed a great start to the three-day Special Event tradeshow in Atlanta: a standing room only audience of two-hundred plus spectators crowded into a seminar room for the Flower Council's special educational session on the day before Special Event tradeshow officially opened! "This tells us that all our hard work promoting European flowers in the US is really paying off," says Marjo Verheijen, the Flower Council's USA area manager. "Our reputation for putting on inspiring, informative European floral design shows is now well known among US event planners and floral professionals."

Design duo

The Flower Council's educational session was hosted by the wonderfully talented and charismatic Dutch designer duo of Pascal Koeleman and Els Teunissen, who were on hand to show and tell how European flowers can be arranged to create stunning designs for all kinds of special events in all seasons. Marjo: "The remarkable thing was that the audience members were already asking questions at the very start of the session, which shows just how interested and engaged they were with what Pascal and Els were doing." 

Must-have

Such is the incredible popularity of the Flower Council's two recent floral design photo-books, Party Flowers and Party Flowers2, that the Flower Council's booth in the exhibit hall at times resembled a Barnes & Nobles bookstore, as hundreds of visitors clamored around with cash in hand, eager to buy copies of the photo-books before supplies ran out. "Alas, we had ran out of the 400 books we brought with us by Day 2 of the Event Show," Marjo says, of these glossy, must-have photo-books bursting with fresh ideas for creating floral event and wedding arrangements and designs with exquisite European flowers.

Oasis

The Flower Council's booth once again rose up like a bright and beautiful oasis of European flowers on the vast exhibit hall floor. Teeming with floral favorites, like Tulipa, Ranunculus and Amaryllis, this beautiful booth was the place to be for all those interested in learning more about the exceptional quality, varieties and colors of European flowers and special care, handling and packaging that allows fresh European specialties and novelties to be delivered around the world.

Gala Awards

A highlight and honor for the Flower Council's promotional team was being asked to present the 'Best Floral Design of the Year' award at The Special Event show's 'Gala Awards', which - in much the same style as the Oscars - honors the year's 'bests' in the event planning sector. The best floral design award was won by 'Design by Sean', located in Dania, Florida. In his acceptance speech, Sean also graciously thanked the Flower Council of Holland for inviting him to join last year's Europe Trip, saying "the most beautiful days for me in 2007 were the days I spent in Holland."