00:02Heritage Centre at the Royal Agricultural Society has done substantial research into the history
00:07of the show bag and we've been able to determine that they are essentially an Australian product.
00:13We have an amazing collection. It dates back to 1822 when the Royal Agricultural Society
00:19was first established. We have 45,000 items and 550 of those are our show bags. This is
00:26an important sub-collection. It charts the history of the show bags from approximately 1929 which
00:33is our first lifesaver show bag through to today. From about 1909 we see sample bags come into play.
00:42They were originally paper bags, unbranded, they would have had boiled lollies, chocolates,
00:49more confectionary items and slowly, slowly they started including their advertising.
00:56For many people and companies, annual show, it was the event of the year. This is where the population
01:03came in droves, they would do their shopping on site, they would mingle country folk and city folk
01:10alike. It was just, yeah, it is a wonderful event. A lot of our show bags have stories behind them.
01:17For example, this strawberry shortcake show bag which was produced in 1984. We have a handwritten
01:24list to go with it, details the contents of the bag from a seven-year-old girl. Even at this
01:30year's
01:30Easter show we'll continue to collect items to preserve for the future. Our job is to make people
01:37happy. I've travelled since I was 16. I can't think of anything else I would rather do. So we started
01:42off with very, very little money, went into a local wholesaler and back in those days you could buy
01:47product and they gave you a show bag to put that product into and we started there. We did a
01:54couple
01:54of festivals and then we put all that money back in and bought more stock and it's just grown and
01:59grown from there. We've become more multicultural. We have to explain show bags a lot more because
02:06show bags are only sold in Australia. If you've got someone new to our country they don't know what
02:11they are and you explain them and they do embrace it, they love it. So when I first started in
02:15show
02:15bags the quality was not that good and we have tried as an industry, all of us have tried very
02:20hard to improve that to make sure that what we're getting is a good quality. It'll last. We like to
02:28pick a theme for our bags then we will source the best product we can to go in that bag
02:34like we do an
02:35emergency rescue bag. So we source themed products that go into the bags. We work very, very hard to make
02:41sure that our products are good quality and there's something that kids are going to enjoy. One of the
02:46most common things we hear parents say to children is you can have any bag you want and then they'll
02:50choose a bag. No, not that one. Wait, what's that? That's a gun. That happens all the time.
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