At the beginning of May the leading US plastics trade fair "NPE" (www.npe.org) reported setting records for number of exhibitors and space (see Plasteurope.com of 22.05.2018), so the organisers – the Plastics Industry Association (Plastics, Washington, D.C. / USA; www.plasticsindustry.org) – had reason enough to hope for a record number of visitors at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC; www.occc.net) in Orlando. The official figure is now 56,034 visitors – 27% from abroad – and certainly a disappointment. Nevertheless, says the association, it is still 1.7% more than at the last NPE in 2015.

Originally, Plastics had reported 65,000 visitors. The organiser had a data analytics company compile the visitor numbers and re-evaluate the figures for NPE 2015 for comparison. The review of the data resulted in the number of unique attendees at the previous event being corrected to 55,110.