At the first winter weekend, 4^th – 6^th of December, the Lithuanian Exhibition Centre LITEXPO will be filled with the festive and creative spirit - the 6th trade fair Celebration and floral exhibition-competition Winter Bouquet bringing together masters of floral compositions for the 29^th time will be held. 

According to Deputy Director of the Lithuanian Exhibition Centre LITEXPO Ms. Kristina Pladienė, this year both events will surprise their visitors by a lot of novelties - visitors will have an opportunity to pick up creative ideas from professional and future florists, artists, decorators and everyone capable of creating extraordinary atmosphere.   

Joint project of LITEXPO and Lithuanian Florists Association – floral exhibition – competition Winter Bouquet again will bring together professional florists, who will create compositions by special themes of the competition, and their works will be evaluated by the international jury. Visitors will have an opportunity to admire floral lamps, floral festive ornaments, bouquets for special occasions created by the contestants. At the Winter Bouquet, a competition for young florists rallying a lot of future specialists from all over Lithuania will also be held. They will arrange floral collages on different themes, decorations and ornaments at the exhibition. 

Floral carpets competition Hello, Vilnius, open to every willing florist, will also be held during the Winter Bouquet exhibition. Every day during the exhibition, florist from the Netherlands Ms. Desiree Glasbergen will hold creative hours, during which intriguing Christmas ideas and floral trends of 2010 will be introduced to the audience. This creative project is a present for the visitors made by the main sponsor of the professional florists contest, one of the biggest exporters of flowers and plants in the Netherlands A.Heemskerk AZN B.V.

This year, the visitors will be invited not only to admire the floral compositions but also to buy them at the auction to be held on the last day of the exhibition, i.e. on the 6^th of December.

 Celebration trade fair to be held at the same time will also introduce a number of novelties to the visitors. Visitors will have a chance not only to buy Christmas decorations, Christmas presents, decorative means and materials but also to pick up ideas of unconventional use of traditional Christmas decoration elements. This opportunity will be offered by Balionų šalis company, which will erect Gediminas Tower at the exhibition from over 4000 balloons, which visitors will be able to enter and see unexpected expositions there.   

Expositions of felts works created by professional artists, paintings on floral theme will await visitors at the Celebration exhibition.

Antique and curiosity trade fair will be held for the first time in the history of the exhibition, where one could find a lot of unexpected things and decorations for presents or home. Visitors will be able to find original antique furniture, interior design decorations, household devices, old photographs and paintings there. Collections of coins and medals will also be exhibited.

Winter Bouquet and Celebration will be held in LITEXPO, Hall 5. Working hours of the events: 4-5 December, 10:00-19:00; 6 December, 10:00-17:00.

Additional information about the both events

Floral Works Exhibition-Contest Winter Bouquet 2009

The following flower shops will take part in the Winter Bouquet and have their advertising stands there: Loretos gėlės, Pas Lidiją, Florisima, Ogmėja, Gėlių kampelis, Floralita Dizainas, which will display vertical planting for the first time in the history of the exhibition.

Professionals’ Contest

This year’s contest will have eight contestants from Lithuania and Latvia: Giedrė Tartėnienė, Indra Jaundaldere, Lina Žiemelienė, Loreta Zakarauskienė, Marta Melaikaitė, Nerijus Navickas, Rytis Trepkus, Valerija Zigmantienė. 

The contestants will have to create three works each. Floral lamps will be created by the contestants at home and will be displayed at the exhibition from the 4^th of December. Floral ornaments and bouquets for special occasions will be created by the professional florists in front of the audience during the first days of the exhibition, and on the 5th of December, their works will be presented to public. 

Winner of the contest will be announced on the 5^th of December, on Saturday.

Students’ Contest

This year, students will have to create floral collages on the themes Seasons, Herbarium, Nostalgia, floral brooches, earrings, bracelets, Christmas composition for interior decoration, decorations for silver Christmas tree, boxes.

85 students from all over Lithuania will take part in the competition.

Winner of the contest will be announced on the 4^th of December, on Friday.

 Floral carpet Hello, Vilnius contest

11 schools, nursery schools, flower shops, individual florists and people eager to test their abilities

in this field will compete. The most beautiful floral carpet will be voted by the visitors, while the results will be announced on the LITEXPO website.

The main sponsor of the Winter Bouquet 2009 exhibition – one of the largest exporters of flowers and plants in the Netherlands A.Heemskerk AZN B.V.

Sponsors: Vilnius City Municipality, Floralita dizainas, Florisima, A grupė UAB, Sodo spalvos, Floristika magazines.

Celebration 2009 Fair

 The Celebration Fair will have exhibition stands of about 100 exhibitors from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Netherlands. Visitors will find a great variety of Christmas decorations, festive ornaments for home, handmade embroidery and knitwear, presents, also sweets, homebrewed beer, Lithuanian cheeses and meat products for a festive table.

Antique and Curiosity Fair will be held.  Antikvaru gilde from Latvia, uniting antique dealers, collectors, restorers from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Germany will participate in the fair. Others exhibitors will include Vilnius Collectors Club and about 20 interesting antique dealers from Klaipeda, Siauliai, Kupiskis, Kaisiadorys. Antique furniture, interior design elements, copper, brass articles, old photographs, paintings, etc. will be displayed at the trade fair.

Gediminas Tower made from balloons will be erected at the exhibition.  Leader of celebration ornaments and balloon decoration in Lithuania – Balionų šalis promises to surprise the visitors by an original project - the most famous country's decorators will create Gediminas Tower from balloons.   The structure is planned to be 4.5 meter high and 3.5 meter wide, over 4000 various balloons will be required for its construction, which will take two days. In order to make the Gediminas Tower look as realistic as possible, the decorators of Balionų šalis have been preparing for this challenge for a couple of months by now - they have been designing, calculating, selecting suitable balloons. For example, in order to achieve realistic colour of the walls, some balloons will contain balloons of different colour shades inside them. Decorators will do their best to recreate every interesting detail of the Gediminas Tower. They promise that visitors will be able to observe the unusual structure not only from outside but from inside as well, where helmets, swords, shields, war axes, armours also made from balloons will be exhibited.

Kaledzienė – a display of felt exhibits will be held. Functional objects made from felt on the Christmas theme will be exhibited by eight felting artists: Daiva Morozova, Viltė Kazlauskaitė, Ramunė Toleikytė, Inga Samušienė, Donata Dumčiuvienė, Aurelija Masiulionytė, Jurgita Migonienė, Vaida Petreikienė. The exhibits will remind of smoke-flavoured herring, Christmas Eve cookies covered with poppy seeds, cranberry jelly or hemp salt with potatoes. The authors are combining wool with Christmas food at the exhibition, since the Christmas Eve and Christmas table represent feast uniting not only live family members but also visitors from the other world – ancestors’ spirits. The artists rely on the belief that the ancestors’ spirits tend to stay in the plants, hair and … wool.