Shops seeking to have a blast

John Van Klaveren
GEELONG retailers are scrambling for supplies of a cheap, plastic, novelty horn that has blasted its way to infamy at South Africa’s FIFA World Cup.
The popularity of the vuvuzela threatens to make it the dominant soundtrack to a series of significant events in the Geelong region, including spring’s UCI world cycling championships.
Tates Toyworld manager Heather Dorris said her store was out of stock but trying to contact suppliers.
“We’ve tried to get some more but we can’t get any. If we could get some we would – we’ve sold them before.”
Westfield’s Geelong Mostly Two Dollars store said customers were asking for the horns.
The store would source stock if the demand continued, a staff member said.
Sydney distributor Appaloosa Toys appears to have cornered the vuvuzela market in Australia, retailing the horn through the company’s website and on eBay.
About 300 vuvuzela’s are available for sale on eBay, with buy-now prices ranging from $8 to $12.
Officials have allowed vuvuzelas at the world cup in South Africa but discouraged them from soccer’s official Fan Fest big-screen site in Sydney during Australia’s match with Ghana.
A City of Greater Geelong spokesman said the city would “generally abide by EPA guidelines” restricting noise to 65 decibels if fans brought the horns to local events such as the City’s world cup live site at the Arena.
Controlling the use of the 127-decibel instruments at open-air events has proven difficult for officials.
Vuvuzelas have been banned at a number of events in Australia, including AFL matches.
Appaloosa director Vaughn de Kretser said his company had recorded a 1000 per cent increase in orders of vuvuzelas from Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
Appaloosa had placed mass orders for vuvuzelas with producers in southern China, he said.
“We’ve been selling this product for the last three or four months but since the World Cup started it’s transformed sales. It’s like everybody wants to grab a World Cup memento.”
Mr De Krester said Appaloosa had decided to direct retail the product in packs of two for $22 as a means of raising the company’s profile.
“We’re dispatching 250 items a day because we’re the only ones retailing them in Australia. We had a hunch they could become a bit of a hit.
“Volume is everything for this product right now.”
Mr De Kretser said fans had now worked out how to extract a tune from the normally monotonous B-flat tone.