With the best results ever since it came into being, PaintExpo 2014 in Karlsruhe (Germany) underlined its leading position as a global information and procurement platform for industrial coating technology. 469 exhibitors (14.4 percent more than in 2012) presented products and solutions for wet painting, powder coating and coil coating from 8th to 11th April 2014. They came from 27 countries, with 28 percent of exhibitors coming from abroad. The net exhibition area was 12,634 square meters – a growth of 21.4 percent. “PaintExpo has really developed well. As a high percentage of visitors come from all fields of industrial coating technology, they are able to obtain information about all the different areas. And that’s really well received. We were able to make excellent new contacts and nurture existing ones. When we take part again in 2016, we’ll have even more staff at our booth to cope with the growing number of visitors,” said Bernd Dispan, Sales Manager of Grimm Pulverlacke GmbH. With an increase of 14.2 percent, the 5th leading international trade fair for industrial coating technology also registered a record number of 9,167 visitors. 26.6 percent of professional visitors came from foreign countries. In total, 70 countries (63 countries in 2012) from all five continents were represented.
The event organized by FairFair GmbH didn’t just make an impression because of the quantity and internationality of its visitors but also because of its quality. Due to the high levels of specialist and decision-making competence, exhibitors noted that discussions were very specific. “We took part in PaintExpo for the first time this year. Thanks to the many interesting contacts and concrete requests for new coating machines made by visitors from various branches, such as the automotive, cosmetic, aerospace and general industries, we are more than pleased with our appearance at the trade fair and will definitely be exhibiting again at PaintExpo in two years’ time”, reported Tomás Miranda happily, Industrial Engineer and Project Leader at the Spanish company Sidasa Engineering. The business area of Clean Systems Technology at Dürr Systems GmbH also had a successful first appearance at PaintExpo: “The trade fair went very well for us. We had lots of interesting discussions and were able to establish some good contacts that may lead to projects. Visitors came with specific requests and that was exactly what we had been hoping for,” said Thomas Scheiring from the company’s sales department. Markus Koenigs, Marketing Communications Manager of EMEA, Powder Coatings, Axalta Coating Systems, is also more than pleased with the way the trade fair went: “Over the years, PaintExpo has become more multi-faceted and international. Compared to other trade fairs, here we get to meet lots of really high-quality professional visitors. We wanted to present our company and skills in the field of industrial surface coating to such people and were able to surpass this aim by a long way. We had lots of interesting and targeted discussions, some of which I’m sure will result in orders.” Oliver Voigt, Sales Manager of Cefla Finishing Europe, talked about some contracts that were concluded directly at the trade fair: “Our appearance at the trade fair was a real success. We made numerous new contacts. Also in the fields of robot applications, printing and digital printing, we had many discussions and closed new deals. That was even the case for product areas that we hadn’t even exhibited here. It’s extremely probable that we will be coming back to PaintExpo in two years’ time.” This is a certainty as far as Martin Weidisch, Marketing, J. Wagner GmbH, is concerned: “You can really tell that PaintExpo has developed into the industry’s most important meeting point. The public has become even more professional and international and the number of visitors coming to PaintExpo has gone up. Visitors have major decision-making powers and are prepared to invest again in process optimization equipment, with the result that we were able to close some good deals at the trade fair. We’re already looking forward to PaintExpo 2016.”