In a Q&A session, tradeshow organiser Easyfair’s head of marketing, Jeremy Whittingham provides Composites in Manufacturing with a progress update in the lead-up to the show.
From 30-31 October at the NEC Birmingham, Advanced Engineering 2019 will incorporate not only the latest developments in aerospace engineering, but the whole gamut of UK manufacturing. Now in its eleventh year, the show has become one of the biggest events in the UK manufacturing calendar.
Q) Please provide an update on the progress of the show, i.e. exhibitors booked in and anticipated visitor attendance figures?
After a record onsite rebooking last November, exhibitor stand sales are running at 10% higher than this time last year, and floor space is approximately 76% booked at this stage. Responding to popular feedback, we will re-introduce our Enabling Innovation Zone, allowing a select number of start-ups the opportunity to showcase their innovations in front of the industry. Once again, this initiative will be supported and co-judged by Innovate UK and the KTN, and will invite applications from all sectors.
Q) Are industry organisations and stakeholders doing enough to rally industry to exhibit and attend the event?
Both Composites UK and the Department for International Trade (DIT) continue to be great supporters of Advanced Engineering. The former has been instrumental in reaching out to the industry and continues to do so proactively - with a significant and growing proportion of their members exhibiting at the show. DIT, who brought Minister Graham Stuart to last year’s show, is again keen to be represented and will be bringing several overseas delegations looking at investment opportunities. Advanced Engineering is also seeing more in general from overseas visitors and exhibitors, led mainly by US, Ireland, Germany and France. More cross-communication is also being undertaken this year across the UK event and our new sister events in Sweden, Belgium, and Spain, who will be inputting into a European pavilion this year.
Q) Are you seeing any major tipping point situations for the mass adoption of composites in industries like construction for example?
Yes, we have actually seen an increase in construction and surveyor related profiles in our visitor demographic for the 2018 show, and the construction sector is indeed getting more traction when we speak generally with the industry. We are also seeing this in terms of activity via the rail sector with the use of composites within platform and bridge infrastructures. It’s likely there may be one or more features related to these in the Composites Engineering feature zone, plus construction-related coverage in the presentation Open Forum programme.
Q) An innovative SME for example, might hold a really interesting seminar on a bio-composite train door leaf. Are you certain that major OEMs like Bombardier and Siemens are at the event to learn about these kinds of innovations?
The Composites innovations-related presentations stream at last year’s show was one of the best-attended, and there is always at least one presentation related to bio-composites and/or sustainability, which will continue to be a major theme this year. Specifically, we always have visitors from Bombardier (both rail and aerospace-related), and Siemens too, so I would be very confident that these and other organisations of a similar level and relevancy will be attending this year’s programme.
Q) Do school and college children attend the show to get enthused about engineering, or does the event clash with half term?
As is usual with trade events of this nature, we and the NEC don’t allow visitors under the age of 16 into the event as it is mainly focused on industry - with the intrinsic health and safety issues this involves. However, skills and the next generation are very important and we tread a balance between ensuring our exhibitors see existing career-engineers who can make decisions today, whilst attracting and inspiring the young engineers of tomorrow, who are perhaps still in higher education or research, and who are desperately needed to help fill the skills gap. We are working with some new and key partners who will be helping us to communicate ideas and inspiration, including Women in Engineering, the Surface Engineering Association’s ‘Surface Engineering Leadership Forum’, STEM, University of Cambridge’s Institute of Manufacturing, and many more.
Q) Is the show connected to the big OEMs with the power to invest or is there the frustration that your appeal and target audience comprises smaller SMEs?
Of course, we’re always working to maintain and develop attendance of the OEMs and higher tier companies as visitors. These are key to the decision-makers who many of our exhibitors want to see, so it is within our own interest as the show organiser to do this. We had the highest exhibitor rebooking rate ever at last year’s show so we are clearly doing something right. We’ve never been so connected as we are now into this level of the industry, with regular contact from a growing number of show ambassadors and advisory board members representing a range of OEM and tier one manufacturers, and we are not stopping there. We shouldn’t forget the importance of SMEs in general - including many of those driving forward innovation and ideas, which Advanced Engineering is increasingly encouraging and exposing for the OEMs and tier ones to discover and invest in.
Q) Do you feel your show achieves its goals in terms of the ‘not so easy to measure’ things like the UK industry’s competitiveness and its ability to export as well as welcome investment from overseas?
I think the two types of measurement go hand-in-hand, as the show will only be a commercial success with the right attendance, and in turn this will only come from our being there to provide unique and tangible opportunities for growth, and providing solutions for global competitiveness and improved efficiencies. This is where a face-to-face event comes into its own: i.e. being able to bring the right people together under a single roof, providing more opportunities in one day than you would get in a month of going out on the road, and being able to compare and make clearer decisions and insights faster than spending days scouring the internet – that in itself provides an efficiency which helps competitiveness! Our relationships with the Department for International Trade, and increasingly with overseas regional industry bodies add further to investment and export opportunities, and we estimate that last year’s show was responsible overall for some £280 million of orders placed or pledged across the advanced engineering supply chain.
