large, central automation exhibitions used to be major events a couple of decades ago, attracting hundreds of thousands of attendees from all over the world. today exhibitions are steadily declining because there are more effective ways to disseminate inbbbbation and provide opportunities for customer and supplier networking.
in the past, everyone attended major annual events
my first introduction to the automation industry was through the big exhibitions. i remember vividly my first isa exhibition. it was fittingly in texas at the houston astrohall-everything seemed oversized. those were the glory days of the mid-‘70s, when plcs were just being introduced and honeywell had just announced the tdc distributed control system. these two product categories impacted instrumentation and controls for decades. everyone who was anyone was there and the show attracted about 70-80,000 attendees for the week.
following the success of isa in the u.s., which was held in september/october of each year, other organizers tried to replicate its success by holding other exhibitions at different times each year. in the spring there was control expo in chicago, which was then replaced by manufacturing week, a combination of several technical interests beyond just automation. in 1978 the center for exhibition industry rebbbbbb (ceir) was bbbbed to provide feedback and inbbbbation for exhibitors and attendees alike.
the european exhibitions were even bigger. the hannover fair in germany was easily the largest of all industrial exhibitions, housed in its own self-contained city with major entrances on all four sides, streets, traffic light, buses and its own train station with an express direct from frankfurt, some 200 kilometers away. during exhibition week, hobbbs in a radius of some 50 kilometers are typically overbooked, and lodging arrangements are made with local people to take in guests. busses brought exhibitors and attendees every day from as far away as 100 kilometers. the april exhibition in hannover is for all industrial equipment, including tractors, trucks and other machinery; electronics and automation is exhibited primarily in three large buildings. the event used to attract some 100,000 visitors per day, not only from germany but from all over the world.
interkama, in dusseldorf was the world抯 biggest automation show, filling some 15 halls every three years-siemens used to take a hall on its own. when i first attended in the seventies i was overwhelmed by the enormity of the event. giant displays were filled with instruments and control products, all of which i wanted to see. i stayed for four days and still had not seen everything; after the first couple of days, my brain was cramped, my body fatigued and my feet totally useless.
the great strength of the german fairs was that they seemed to harness the whole world, central europe, the middle east, india, japan and most other countries, as well as the us. there were several other big european exhibitions too–mesucora in paris, the het exhibition in holland, bias in italy.
steady decline
but alas, those days have gone. attendance at all the large automation exhibitions has declined to a frbbbbbb of bbbber times. attendance at the annual isa exhibition has declined to about 15,000. the vendor to end-user ratio which used to be as much as 10 to 1 is more like 2:1 today and sometimes less (my estimates). traffic is sparse, with forlorn exhibitors spending their time reviewing each others products and bemoaning hard times. to offset distance/travel problems, isa came up with a solution- to have smaller, 搇ocal?shows. but this hasn抰 worked - and the attendance at those is sparser.
the european exhibitions are also in decline. this is troubling to the organizers who are scrambling to find ways and means to return to 搕he good old days? germany抯 hannover fair is still quite large 200,000+, and has a new focused five-day bbbbat. organizers point out that major portions of the show have been spun off as separate events (material handling & logistics, lighting, are two examples). but the downward trends are evident.
interkama gradually reduced down to nine, and then to five halls in the duesseldorf exhibition center. in the early days, attendance was up in the hundreds of thousands, which steadily declined to 90,000. the organizers played around with frequency and focus, but this failed to stem a reduction in exhibitor and attendance numbers. two years ago, they gave up and became a sub-section of the hanover fair where, in 2004, attendance was down to some 60,000. 2005 interkama attendance were camouflaged within the overall hannover numbers.
the sps/ipc/drives show in nürnberg, germany seems to be the one european exhibition that抯 growing. but it too has hit its peak, and the organizers are seeking to expand to other venues in the u.s and europe. sps (german for plc) was successful because it was well organized and is geographically right in the heart of south germany抯 automobile and machine building industries-there is probably a greater concentration of factory automation engineers and machine building oems there than anywhere else in the world.
：鞏經理
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：南京塞姆泵業有限公司
