COEX commenced business in 1969, albeit with a different business name, ‘Eftee Displays’. Since our inception, we have grown and expanded to provide a range of graphics, tradeshow displays and exhibition stands to both local and international customers.
COEX owner and Managing Director, Frank Towsey, was born and raised in the industry. Frank’s late father, Bill Towsey, was a Director of a Sydney based company, specialising in exhibition stands, for more than 25 years. To the right are a few early examples of displays and exhibition stands from Bill’s era. Note some familiar brand names such as QANTAS and HOOVER!
HERE ARE SOME OF FRANK’S EARLY PROJECTS!
All of the following pictures come from Frank’s archives and predate 1995.
The owner of COEX, Frank Towsey, commenced his own business on Monday, 30th June, 1969….and here is his diary for the first day!
“It was a hectic start! Initially, I worked from home. In those days, we didn’t have mobile phones or emails. It was hard going! But customers were very receptive to a young, eager man….and gave us a go….and have been giving us a go ever since!”
Crown was one of our earliest customers. This was the first stand we built for them. We designed and built this stand in about 1970. It was built in the new annexe alongside Melbourne’s original Exhibition Centre, which was known as “The Dome”.
Our involvement with Crown was extensive: we designed lobbies, offices, and some huge exhibition stands. Pictured alongside is a monster stand, designed to highlight the extraordinary liftheight of some of their forklift trucks!
Our relationship with Crown extended over 27 years.
Right from the earliest days, COEX was asked to build portable display solutions!
Frank admits that some of the results weren’t as light as hoped: “My customers needed strong backs to lift the early products we designed and built!”
Both these jobs were built in the very early ’70s.
Back when the computer industry was promoting the change from massive mainframes to ‘minis’, COEX managed to attract the attention of some of the ‘major players’, including Prime, for whom we undertook a number of very large exhibits.
This was one of the biggest and best!
(Project undertaken in 1980.)
But back to the beginning!
Philips were another very early client. You can pick the age of this project by the vintage of the car!
Job produced about 1969.
We did a lot of work for Philips….unfortunately many of the pictures have gone missing, but here’s another one on the left. Some of the jobs live on in Frank’s memory!
“We renovated Philips’ pavillion at the Sydney Showground (then at Moore Park) and mounted a huge exhibit to launch audio cassettes in Australia! That was back in 1970!”
……..and here’s just one picture.
Another example of a very early Philips job.
In 1988, COEX acquired distribution rights in NSW for Skyline Displays, an American firm whose Australian importer was based in Brisbane. While the custom-built area of business flourished, so did the portable sector. Skyline introduced COEX to the concept of computer-aided design, which not only aided the sales of portable display equipment, but also aided the sale of custom-built exhibits.
Here are some of the earliest examples of portable displays we designed and sold.
Astra were our very first customer for a Skyline Mirage unit.
During this period, our graphics were produced photographically, or by a marvellous airbrush artist, George Wilson, who was capable of working in reverse on the back of clear polycarbonate. His work was truly an artform.
COEX was among the first in Australia to attempt computer generated design proposals…and this was before colour screens and printers! Project undertaken in 1991.
Another example of early computer designs! Project undertaken 1991. These weren’t 3-dimensional, just illustrations done on a computer! But clients loved them…
Have you spotted the size of the mobile phone?!
…and our clients loved our designs even more when rendered in colour!
Projects undertaken in 1993.
The bigger, the bolder!
It wasn’t just the computer industry who wanted the biggest!
Our colour renders were of ongoing value for both custom-built and portable displays!
Valmet, as they were then known (and thereafter Partek and now Komatsu Forest) continue to be ongoing customers.
Here’s another early example of work we undertook for them, this time a dual Mirage setup.
Clients were keen to grasp a concept of the stand in 3D, so prior to computer 3D rendering software becoming available, we built models….and sure enough, the real stand looked vaguely the same!
…here’s another classic, very trendy at the time (about 1980)!
We’ve got heaps more pictures, so if you’re interested in seeing more, please contact frank@coex.com.au
Late in the ’90s, COEX was among the first in the industry to move to large format digital printing.
The progression to large format digital graphics was slow and painful! However as our clients recognised the potential of this methodology, we built up a sizable graphic design studio, graphic production facility and laminating operation.
You’ll see plenty of examples of our early digital printing efforts in our gallery……click on “Browse: Sort by Oldest” and you’ll see examples dating back to the mid 90s.
During the same period, we served as many as 22 pharmaceutical customers! They really liked our Skyline portable display solutions! And then came TigerMark, a range of easily assembled large-component stands. Some of these were very large exhibits!
The portable side of our business diminished in about 2005, due to the inroads made by inexpensive and inferior Chinese imports. We now support just a few unique portable products, which we refer to as DIY products. Most of these are made here in Australia.
Our business now concentrates on custom-rental and custom-built exhibition solutions….and both our website and gallery provide extensive numbers of images of both computer renders and the finished product.
