NPE

Hey that JDL software does seem impressive, I must profess ignorance of this product prior to now.

We are following up on our leads now and many look very promising, and these from high expectation and very demanding companies. These are the kind of companies we love to deal with.

brent

www.matrixtooling.com

Of necessity, I talk with as many people, primarily exhibitors, as I possibly can at a trade show, and I always ask how the show is going for them. At NPE it seemed like the exhibitors each had been programmed to say some version of this: We're not getting as many people as in previous shows, but the people coming in are buyers, decision-makers, and they have concrete projects to talk about.
NPE's registration stats showed that almost as many "companies" sent people as in 2006; they just sent fewer people.
One hot runner supplier told me how, after many NPEs, he just had a totally new experience: someone handed him a hard-copy P.O. He had it in his pocket.
Another veteran exhibitor said, without being asked, that at the end of the third day he could say this was his best NPE ever in terms of real inquiries. I had seen him the day before the show opened and he had no idea what the show would be. He was worried it could bomb.
Bottom line, exhibitors I talked to were not complaining. Quantity of visitors was down but quality was up, and conversations were about specific projects and plans. That said, they were also all realistic, noting that it will take some time to recover from the economic crash, and that the next couple of months would show whether the good interest they had at NPE would turn into real business.
Considering the state of the economy in general, and the plastics processing business in particular, it's hard not to see NPE2009 as a success, even if there's an asterisk attached. Yes, Friday was super quiet, but Monday and Thursday were decent, and Tuesday and Wednesday were quite busy. Four out of five ain't bad.

NPE show a success!
We felt the NPE show was very successful (at least for us) even with the lower attendance which was apparently down approx 30%.
I have to believe that the 30% that didn't show were the tire kickers that were no where to be seen. All of the leads we rec'd were all of high quality and very serious about their inquiries.
Traffic seemed to be slow on Monday, Thursday afternoon and especially on Friday, but we were still pulling in people to our booth even late on Friday when many around us had already packed up and went home. A couple of our promising leads on Friday afternoon weren't just bored exhibitors wandering around but rather purchasing specialists from OEM's. Those companies that bailed early, missed out on some very promising leads - I guess I owe them thanks! The prospects got to spend more time with us.
We didn't get much of a chance to visit other exhibitors as much as we would like as we were so busy, but the little bit we did get to talk with others, there was a fair bit of optimism shown with many good leads picked up by most companies. Naturally, depending on your business, you may not have the busiest booth, but a couple of good leads can certainly make the cost of the show worthwhile.
These shows are so important to get the word out about your company and the cost is so high, I don't understand why so many feel the need to pack up and leave early every day, get to the show late, leave the booth unattended and then on the last day with a couple of hours left (or more), they pack up to head home. What does that say about your company? What does that say about what you think of the potential customers who only have that day to get to the show to see you.

To answer some of Bill's questions
1) It was a very good show - remember though, you get out of it what you put into it.
2) We got to meet many of our peers (moldmakers, molders and other software vendors) but unfortunately didn't get the chance to meet Bill, Brent or some of the other popular posters in this forum - was really hoping to be able to do that.
3) There were many new technologies and services being showcased (including ours of course!), that seemed to get pretty good press coverage including many form small companies if you were able to spend the time to find them. What surprised me is that some software companies with new products did not have the licenses on the laptops of the exhibiting personnel to show the stuff but had advertised and had signage for the products - what's with that?
4) We had a couple of papers that were presented, they were very well received even though they were not well attended. That was disappointing due to the amount of work that goes into them, but the attendees were very appreciative and responsive with questions, comments, and feedback.
5) Tuesday was the busiest day for traffic and quality leads, and at times on other days you could have rolled a bowling ball down an aisle, but spread out as much as the attendees were at times, each day still brought us 15-25 good quality solid leads each day.

Overall, a shows success will be different to each company exhibiting. Having something new, different, better, etc attracts leads to your booth. We had all of that which made the difference for us.
One of our products being introduced for the first time in North America was process optimization software. I was pleasantly surprised at just how much interest was generated by this and the positive comments we rec'd.
Another product we were showing, and I believe we were the only exhibitor doing so, was mold and part estimating software. We had an incredible response to the demos we offered on this also.

Talking with several of the other exhibitors and many attendees, it was very refreshing to hear positive comments and optimism about the future. We can certainly use some of that. Optimism is a good thing, lets all stay positive and hopefully we will all prosper from it.

To those who couldn't make the show due to company travel restrictions - that is certainly unfortunate. There were many great products being offered that could potentially show a positive return on investment had they been able to attend and learn about these. The information is still out there, it'll just take more research to get it now, but there is something for every company, big or small to take advantage of if they can.

Brent - sorry I didn't get to your meditation sessions -I couldn't find any scalpers to buy tickets from!

www.JDLTech.ca

Have to agree with Brent that Friday was empty---the only people roaming the aisles were exhibitors.

Tuesday was very full, just like the show in the best of times. Again agreeing with Brent, all of the exhibitors I spoke with said they had good talks with exactly the people they hoped would attend, but that there were in general fewer attendees. That's to be expected with travel budgets down everywhere.

The one think that truly jumped out at me was the number of companies touting bioplastics, or plastics with recyclate, or plastics based on renewable resources, everything that had to do with sustainable plastics; it almost reminds me of all of the e-business companies that were at NPE in 2000, though I think the plastics suppliers have a better chance at survival.

I took sick and was only able to attend Friday. I used to get sick as a child right before Christmas too!
I did escape the booth and finally got to meet Suhas (Fimtech)in person. He has an incredible new Molder software Nautilus, which also incorporates Molder DOE with great graphical and statistical capability. He is a great person who gives much to our industry.

Mold Masters showcased a servo valve gate system, and Battenfeld, a tabletop piston/screw high speed micro press

My coworkers who manned the booths reported lower attendance, but serious attendees. Friday was super slow, even for a Friday, in my experience. The cheery air was gone, but it could be a Friday letdown

My meditation sessions were sellouts!

brent