The number of people attending this year's Hispack expo in Barcelona was down on the previous show, although the organisers claim that the quality of visitors was high and that business remained brisk on the stands.
The twelfth International Packaging Exhibition Hispack 2003 closed its doors on the 4th of April having received an audience of 30,438 trade visitors, 28,135 of which were Spanish and 2,303 foreign.
"As has been occurring in industrial exhibitions in Europe, the international situation has had a negative affect on the number of visitors, fewer than forecast. However, this was not the case with quality. According to the majority of exhibitors, trade visitors at the event showed more interest in exhibited products and were more disposed towards making trade contacts," said a spokesman for Hispack 2003.
The organisers said that Hispack successfully fulfilled its two main objectives: to carry out the venue change satisfactorily and to improve sector distribution.
The organisers added that given the available space in the Gran Via M2 (L'H) exhibition centre in Barcelona, this edition of Hispack would not grow. However, they added that the decision to change the venue was one of the aspects most highly ranked by Hispack exhibitors and visitors.
Overall, 2,177 companies were represented at 737 stands in Hispack 2003. 804 of the exhibitors were national and 1,373 were foreign, from 32 countries. After Spain, Italy, Germany and France were the countries most represented.
In terms of size, Hispack occupied 47,424m2, practically the same area as at the previous edition. The sectors present were: packing and packaging machinery and accessories; bottling machinery and equipment; labelling, coding and marking equipment; machinery for manufacturing processes for products to be packaged; raw materials; packing and packaging materials; ancillary products; POP, sales promotion and design; logistics, handling, storage and distribution; environment; recovery, treatment and recycling; consulting, engineering companies and related services.
The next Hispack will be staged in 2005. By then, the Gran Via M2 (L'H) exhibition centre will have two new pavilions (currently under construction), which are expected to furnish growth potential of the exhibition organised biennially by Fira de Barcelona, in collaboration with the Graphispack Association.
Parallel activities carried out at the expo included: the presentation of the up-dated White Paper on Packing and Packaging, which gives the main economic magnitudes of this industry and future trends for the next two years; the conference in which the shopping anthropologist, Paco Underhill, offered some recommendations on increasing sales in shops and which was attended by over 150 people; the 2nd Young Adult's Packaging Workshop, with more than 1,100 registered university students; and the prize giving ceremonies for the Líderpack 2003 and WorldStars 2002 Awards, two events, which show innovation and quality in packaging on a national and international scale.
Hispack is organised by Fira de Barcelona, a leading organiser of industrial and professional events in Spain and one of the first four in Europe in number of trade shows.