Canon Communications, a leading international exhibition organiser for the advanced manufacturing technology sector, has acquired the Machine Building and co-located exhibitions at the NEC in Birmingham. Canon already organises MEDTEC UK, medical devices manufacturing exhibition and 3C Cleanrooms which have been held alongside Machine Building for a number of years.
"In other parts of the world we have been very successful at adopting a one badge entry policy for all shows, while retaining individual event identities," says Jeannette van Doorn, Canon's marketing manager. "If you consider the various shows that are running alongside each other at the NEC there is synergy between them: a great deal of content in the IPOT show relates to vision technology which can be equally well applied to machine builders' requirements."
This means that Canon can offer visitors a much more rewarding visit, with a wider offering of exhibitors, while retaining the niche market nature of each event that they like.
"Our own expertise has grown from organising events for the medical device manufacturing sector where visitors are design and manufacturing professionals engaged in producing medical devices," says van Doorn. "Medical device manufacturing is a hot industry right now and many machine builders attend and exhibit next door at MEDTEC UK. We can capitalise on synergy between these events to ensure that visitors get far more out of a visit than they could in the past."
Free to attend exhibition-hall seminars are being put in place and where possible Canon is trying to cross-pollinate between the different shows. For instance visitors to Machine Building will find the seminars on machine safety and wireless of great interest, even though they are being held in MTEC.
"An additional benefit from Canon's acquisition of all the events is that it allows us to respond to exhibitors' and visitors' demands," adds van Doorn. "For years people have been asking for the dates to be moved away from St Valentine's day and the half term school holidays. With all events now operated by one organiser this is now possible and in 2009 the shows will move to new halls where they can be better co-located, on dates away from the holiday week so that more visitors are able to attend."
Machine Building 2008 will be held in Hall 10, at the NEC Birmingham, UK, on 13/14th February 2008.
