Phae Barrett

Oh, I think I first came across them quite a long time ago and didn't think too much of them at the time.

But I did work for an expo company and I pitched the idea.

to my boss of doing a tiny home expo.

And he giggled a little bit and said, oh, it sounds like a cool little hippie show.

Well, of course, as you just said, it's not a hippie show anymore.

It's incredibly mainstream.

And we launched in October of last year following a few COVID setbacks.

And we've now done three and about to do our fourth.

Yeah, especially considering the weather as well.

We had difficult weather in Melbourne, but I'm not at all surprised.

The biggest problem we have is trying to keep the crowds down.

We have a staggered entry system because otherwise people are just queuing to try and get in to see the homes on the inside.

And the Expo actually is in danger of imploding under its own popularity.

That's how popular tiny homes are.

Right.

Well, there's the quintessential tiny home, which is the pretty tiny home, which is on wheels.

But they also come on skids in the form of shipping containers and modulars.

At the Melbourne Expo, we also had wagons there, like gypsy wagons or Vardy, as they are called.

Then there's just backyard pods in all kinds of different shapes.

In fact, in Melbourne, we probably had the most diversity that I've ever seen of any get-together of any tiny homes ever.