Metcash Food Expo 2026: Conference, Expo and Awards Photography at The Star and GCCEC
Four days, two venues, three shooters and AI photo delivery. How we covered Australia's biggest independent retail event.
The Metcash Food Expo 2026
The Metcash Food Expo 2026, incorporating the IGA National Conference, is one of Australia's biggest independent retail events. Held from 12 to 14 July 2026 across two venues, the conference, awards and gala at The Star Gold Coast, and the expo at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, this year's theme was Partners Powering Growth.
The scale tells the story: the 2026 event drew over 300 exhibitors and 1,700+ retailers, generating 13,819 orders and more than a million cartons ordered from the expo floor. Around the trade show runs a full conference program, state cocktail parties, the National IGA Awards of Excellence and the closing-night Gala Extravaganza.
Event Photos Australia has worked with Metcash for over 15 years. This year's coverage was our most ambitious yet, and a preview of where event photography is heading.
The coverage
Our team of three, lead photographer, second photographer and videographer, worked across four days and two venues.
Saturday: setup and state cocktail parties. Expo construction coverage at GCCEC as 300+ stands came together, then five simultaneous state cocktail parties in the evening, four across The Star Gold Coast's venues, from the Event Marquee to a Level 18 penthouse, plus the SA function offsite at Sofitel Gold Coast.
Sunday: conference opens, expo day 1. IGA Conference sessions in The Star Ballroom in the morning, then straight to the GCCEC expo floor. While one photographer captured the floor, the booths and the booth design award winners, the other ran instant branded photo delivery for exhibitors, stand photos shot and shared to each exhibitor's phone via QR code with Metcash Expo branding, on the spot. The evening brought the Exhibitor Welcome Party and the National Council Dinner.
Monday: conference day 2 and the National IGA Awards of Excellence. The big night. Our second photographer ran a lit media wall for formal portraits while the lead photographer covered the room and every award presentation. Hero shots and winner photos were delivered the same night for Metcash's social channels and event app.
Tuesday: final expo day and the Gala Extravaganza. A Sports Fest themed closing night in The Star Ballroom, with a photo wall delivering images onsite via iPad, guests grabbed their photos by QR code or email before leaving the party.
The new stuff: instant photo delivery
This year we introduced instant photo delivery using facial recognition for the first time. Guests could scan a QR code, register with a selfie, and receive their photos automatically as galleries went live, no app download, no scrolling through thousands of images. The system matches each registered guest to the photos they appear in, notifies them the moment their photos are ready and shows them only their own images.
Privacy is built in: faces are converted to encrypted digital patterns used only for matching, the data can't be reconstructed into images and is never sold, shared or used to train AI models. Registration is entirely opt-in, guests who prefer the traditional gallery simply use that instead.
One deliberate exception: at the Gala photo wall we used direct iPad delivery rather than facial recognition. It was a costume night, and face-matching doesn't love a full mascot head. Knowing when not to use the new tech matters as much as having it. Guests simply had to select their photos on the iPad and scan a QR code on their phone to download their photos, alternatively they could enter their email to get their photos send to their inbox.
Awards photos, templated and delivered mid-event
We also trialled a new social media service at the Awards of Excellence. As each winner was photographed on the night, images went straight to the cloud, where an offsite editor dropped them into a branded template with the award name and store name, for example, Small Fresh Food Award, and sent them to the winner with a congratulations message before the night was over.
It worked. Within minutes, Spano's IGA Warwick had posted their branded award announcement to Instagram and LinkedIn themselves, picking up over 750 reactions and 100 comments. That's the kind of organic reach a gallery link sent three days later never gets.
Winners walked out with a share-ready, branded announcement of their award while their phones were still buzzing with congratulations. For a retail audience whose customers live on their local store's social pages, this was made for sharing.
The video program
Photography is only half the coverage. Our videographer delivered the conference opener, pre-produced ahead of the event, then updated on the ground with fresh clips of the expo build, delegates arriving off the buses, welcome receptions and drone footage, so the video that opened the conference included moments from the night before.
Also delivered: the pre-event sizzle reel for Metcash's retailer communications to drive registrations, cut from our own archive of past events; the social media wrap-up, a short recap video delivered three days after the event for Metcash's channels; and the highlights video.
More than the event itself
The partnership runs well beyond the four days on the Gold Coast. When retailers win state awards, we photograph their stores, and those photos appear in the national awards night slideshow and the event app. The store a retailer sees on screen when they win is one we shot months earlier.
This year we also trialled store visit videos, a new format capturing winning retailers in their own stores, now being locked in for future events. And with 15 years of coverage behind us, the archive itself has become a resource, awards slideshows, comms campaigns, look-back reels, we pull the best frames in hours, not weeks.
The result
- Four days of coverage across The Star Gold Coast and GCCEC by a team of three
- Instant branded photo delivery to expo exhibitors and guests on the floor
- Same-night delivery of award winner and hero shots for socials and the event app
- Templated, branded award announcements delivered to winners during the awards
- Opt-in facial recognition galleries, guests received their photos automatically
- Conference opener video updated overnight with fresh footage, plus a social wrap-up video three days post-event and a highlights video
- Full edited gallery delivered within 3 business days (thanks to our offsite editor)
See our our guide to the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre and the Star Gold Coast, where the expo is held each year.
