Packaging show looks for quality not quantity

A Total Processing and Packaging product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 1, 2006

Processing and packaging event adds focus to ensure that it brings the right visitors together with the right exhibitors

The organisers of the Total Processing and Packaging exhibition have rethought the planning of their 2007 show, which takes place at the NEC from 15th to 18th May 2007.

"Basically", said Ian Crawford, Exhibition Director for Total, "we took a more realistic view of Total and its principal audience once we had really had a chance to analyse the statistics from the 2004 event".

"Now, instead of simply pushing a big theme for the 2007 show, we are focusing much more heavily on visitor quality and potential spending power".

The show team members put the combined value of the UK processing and packaging sectors at £6.4 billion.

It therefore makes sense to focus their energy and resources on what they regard as a rapidly integrating sector.

And this is reflected in the title of the 2007 exhibition - Total Processing and Packaging.

Statistics from Total 2004 bear out the relevance of this revised strategy.

The 2004 event attracted 25,000 visitors through the doors of the NEC, making it one of the best-attended industrial exhibitions in the UK.

The great bulk of the visitors were UK-based, with 18% coming from overseas.

All the visitors were drawn from senior management levels and had genuine specifying and purchasing authority.

"If you look at the job titles of the majority of the visitors", said Crawford, "it was very much a case of never mind the quantity, look at the quality".

Nearly two thirds of visitors to Total (64%) were either directors or senior engineers.

Most were very senior figures looking to do business.

No less than 85% of them said their visit to the show would influence purchasing decisions in the coming 12 months.

Just over half said that exhibitions played either a significant or even indispensable part in sourcing equipment and services.

"Obviously, while we will be aiming to attract a similar substantial foreign contingent to the 2007 show", said Crawford, "our focus will be on a quality UK audience of senior processing and packaging executives".

This realism is reflected in the brochure for Total 2007 which describes the show as "a truly integrated platform for companies in the processing and packaging industries".

The event will draw together exhibits covering every aspect of the processing and packaging cycle, from raw materials storage and handling, through processing machinery and systems, control and instrumentation to design, software, systems and other packaging hardware to storage and distribution.

Unlike the 2004 version, the layout of the show will reflect this integrated approach and provide visitors with a logical flow through the halls from one stage of the processing and packaging cycle to the next.

Crawford said: "Total Processing and Packaging 2007 will, once again, be one of the best attended industrial exhibitions in the UK".

"Its principal focus will be the higher levels of management with genuine specifying and purchasing authority and this will be reflected in the quality of the companies that have already signed up to exhibit at the show".

"The difference this time is that we will focus the show and our promotion to ensure that it brings the right visitors together with the right exhibitors".