A little bit of Heal Yourself Expo’s history. The Expo has been running since September 2011 with the very first one kicking off in a real estate car park in Woodford, we had 35 stall holders, a wonderful weekend and nearly 1,000 people turning up. The funny thing for us though was that we had (well the Real Estate anyway) a bit of a backlash from the community, with people offering the owner names of doctors that could help him if he was ill and even threatening to take listings away.
In October 2012 we moved the Expo to Maroochydore, we were sponsored by the Sunshine Coast Daily then so we had the Expo in the old printing shed of the Daily, the Expo was an awesome event we had lots of people there, exhibitors and lots of people milling through over the weekend, we put on a Saturday Night concert as well and had a great turn up for the musical acts.
In 2013 and 2014 we changed the name to the “Sunshine Coast Healthy Lifestyle Expo” which we put on at the Event Centre In Caloundra, both Expos were very flash and we had some awesome exhibitors and speakers (Including a NASA scientist), however after the 2014 Expo Wayne wondered if the expo had lost sight of his original vision and whilst on many levels it may appeared to have been a success it had become about sales and numbers and had lost the original intention of building a strong community of Healers, Way Showers and Change Makers … so at the end of 2014 partnerships were dissolved and he took the next year off.
2016 it came back and with the help of Samyo in regaining its momentum under its original mission of community building and education, we would love for you to join us, the 2016 Expo was held in a much smaller and intimate setting at Millwell Hall in Maroochydore, all the exhibitors were there with the intent of helping people heal and those that attended were looking for advice on how to self Heal. We are a specialist Expo, with specialist exhibitors whose intent is to educate people on their healing journey, so why not join us.
The “Heal Yourself” concept has always been a difficult one to get passed a lot of people, corporate identities especially, to paraphrase one wholesaler “why would I want to get involved in anything where you are getting people to heal themselves and no longer need our product”. But that is exactly what this Expo is about! Educating people to make the right choices for themselves, not the person next to them, sisters, aunts, uncles, parents, friends included. This Expo is all about assisting people and educating people so they can heal naturally. That is not to say that there aren’t products out there that people can take to assist and maintain good health but it is about educating people to make the choices that suit them and is in integrity.
Most days we do seem to have an uphill battle, most of the population is more than happy to hand over their health to someone else to look after as it is too hard. The mainstream population has not been educated enough in the alternatives, they have in fact been actively discouraged away from them, and worse of all they do not trust their intuition to tell them what is right for their body. Instead they get swayed by well versed sales people into buying their product. The product itself might be awesome, but is it the right thing for that person. Selling to everyone for the sake of sales is no different then the “one medicine suits all” principles of Western Medicine.
Having the big flash expo with all the stands, heaps of advertising on TV, Radio, Press was appealing, but that is not what my vision of the Expo was ….. So what is the vision.
Setting the Intent:
A place of Education: Many expos have become so expensive that to have a stall is over $1,000 for the weekend, so anyone exhibiting had to get money back from somewhere, so sales became the mantra. This Expo is a place of education, not just a place for sales.
A place of Healing: It has been my experience and Joy to work with many home based businesses that have a real passion to help people heal, these are the people that I want to help empower to get the word out about the awesome work they do, and for this reason I had to make sure the home based businesses could afford to be here, so a lot of the frills had to go, big advertising budgets for an example, but as I have stated many times, Word of Mouth is the best and most successful form of advertising.
A place of Trust: Many people that need the help of natural therapists and healers do not know who to see and why. During their journey will get disillusioned as the practitioners they see are more interested in selling the person product than actually understanding the person and the problem they are presenting. This Expo will become that place, a place where people can come and know that the information they receive is trustworthy and aimed to assist the person to “Heal Themselves”.
A place to be yourself: Creating a community of people dedicated to helping people on their self-healing journey, so that we can cross refer, understand the outstanding aspects of each other’s work to the better of the community as a whole.
The Advertising and promotion of the Expo has all been targeted to attract those that are interested in Self Healing. Many times I have been asked “how many people will come to the Expo”, my answer to that is the amount of people that will come to the Expo are those that feel it is time for them Heal, this may be 1 person, it may be thousands, but the one thing I know for sure is that everyone that walks through that door knows why they are there and they are looking for people to answer their health questions, and by health we mean, Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Health
This should hopefully give you a bit of an insight to the intent behind the Expo. It is a place of Education, it is not just about Sales. A place for healing, helping others on their Journey to become who they want to be. A place where people will trust that the exhibitors have their best interests at heart and not just someone trying to sell them something. And most of all, a place to be yourself, to have fun, enjoy, to have a laugh, and best of all be a part of an awesome community.
Wayne & The Expo Team.
