The 23rd “Fakuma” plastics industry fair (www.fakuma-messe.de) opens its doors in Friedrichshafen / Germany today, and will run until 18 October. Organiser P.E. Schall (Frickenhausen / Germany; www.schall-messen.de) reports that as of 8 October, 1,786 exhibitors had registered for the event, including partner booths and registered representatives. At 1,153, by far the largest number of exhibitors comes from Germany, followed by Italy (117), Switzerland (114), Austria (63), China and Hong Kong (59), France (47), The Netherlands (31), Belgium (25), Portugal (22), the UK (21), the Czech Republic and Turkey (each 20), the US (15), South Korea (14) and Spain (13).

During its last two editions in 2011 and 2012, the fair, which is not held during years when the “K” fair takes place in Düsseldorf / Germany, Schall registered a visitor number of about 44,000. At 31% of the total, the number of foreign visitors has never been higher. Since most attendees attempt to “see it all” in one day, Schall has extended the daily opening times: From Tuesday to Friday, Fakuma will be open from 9am to 6pm – one hour longer than in previous years – while the doors will be shut one hour earlier on Saturday, at 3pm.

The 12 halls of the Friedrichshafen fairgrounds have been fully booked, as have the site’s two entrance halls. As in 2012 and during 2013’s K, most exhibitors at Fakuma come from the machinery and tools sectors. The key theme will once again be injection moulding technology. By now, innovations presented at last year’s K have been improved, retrofitted or combined and are available in a wider range or in additional sizes. Aside from that, a number of new machinery ranges are set to make their debut at the fair, too. Quite a few exhibitors have joined hands for cooperative efforts and projects, some of which are already well-known while others are comparatively recent.

The event will reflect the ongoing technological trend towards automated processing and tooling techniques as well as electrically driven peripheral equipment, although it has to be said that the spread of electrically powered injection moulding machines is proceeding at a much slower pace than experts have predicted for the past two decades.

The buzzword “Industry 4.0” has also been mentioned by several exhibitors, indicating that the stronger link between production and information technology is becoming an issue in the plastics processing sector, too, with almost all parties testifying to room for more flexibility, productivity and cost effectiveness.

Most international plastics producers will be represented by their distribution partners or traders and compounders, who for their part are offering a whole range of ready-to-use or optimised compounds in order to meet their customers’ oftentimes highly specific requirements. The fair will also include a comparatively large number of recyclers and regrinders, with a huge number of different recycling concepts, plants and machinery on display, while – in line with past years – the number of traditional extrusion machinery manufacturers is quite low.

Over the course of the last few years, Fakuma has become an increasingly important regional European fair. The once leading regional events "Equiplast" (www.equiplast.com), held in Barcelona / Spain, and "Interplas" (www.interplasuk.com), which takes place in Brimingham / UK, just recently wrapped up. Held at the same time as a surface and chemical fair (see Plasteurope.com of 10.02.2014), Equiplast attracted some 38,000 visitors this year – down by one third over the numbers seen in 2008. The organisers of Interplas were hoping to attract 10,000 visitors – just a fraction of the number of attendees that flocked to Birmingham in the late 1990s from as far afield as the Middle East, India and other Commonwealth states. The annual "Plastpol" (www.targikielce.pl) fair, held in Kielcze / Poland, regularly draws between 16,000-17,000 visitors, while the "FIP Solution Plastique" (www.f-i-p.com) – once held in the heart of France’s plastics processing industry in Oyonnax – is drawing much lower visitor numbers since its 2009 move to Lyon. While the former location saw up to 10,000 attendees, the 2011 fair attracted about 6,800 while this year’s event drew about 9,300 visitors. The only plastics fair in Europe that has seen successive growth in the past few years is "Plast Eurasia" (www.tuyap.com.tr), which drew 1,100 exhibitors and more than 40,000 visitors last year (see Plasteurope.com of 24.01.2014) – of which 15% came from outside of Turkey. It is quite possible that this particular fair will soon catch up to Fakuma with regard to visitor numbers.

In the meantime, Fakuma organiser Schall will keep a close watch on how many visitors will flock to Italy’s "Plast" (www.plastonline.com), held next May. Aside from K, this is the only event that has successively attracted more attendees than Fakuma. In 2000, 2003 and 2006, the fair drew some 70,000 visitors, a number that fell to 55,000 in the crisis year of 2009, while – despite the economic recovery – only slightly more than 50,000 visitors attended the Milan-based event in 2012. It is thus quite possible that next year’s 24th edition of Fakuma, held from 13-17 October, could become Europe’s leading plastics fair in non-K years.

Plasteurope.com’s publishing house KI Group (Bad Homburg / Germany; www.kiweb.de) will also have a booth at Fakuma this year. You are more than welcome to visit us at hall B2, booth 2101. We look forward to meeting you there!