As the organizer found in its survey, the exhibitors were highly satisfied with the show as such, the number of visitors and the quality of their leads. Well, what else would an organizer’s funded survey during such a trade fair find out! Approximately 24,000 trade visitors from more than 40 countries came to Nuremberg to get the latest information and insights about trends, technologies in packaging, assembly and manufacture, as well as current developments and other innovations in the microelectronics industry. It is claimed that many investment decisions were made on site, and the expectations of visitors and exhibitors alike towards the show were apparently exceeded. All in all, the highly focused three-day event clearly revealed that exhibitors’ as well as visitors’ views on the development of this business sector are much more positive than we have seen in the past couple of months.
538 attendees made use of the technical conference and tutorials offered during the exhibition. The next edition of the SMT trade show will take place in Nuremberg from May 30 to June 1, 2006. At that time, it will mutually be held with the events PCIM Europe and Sensor. This is in order to avoid a clash with the schedule of the World Soccer Championships 2006 preliminary games, also taking place in Nuremberg exactly at the same time. By the way, it’s worthwhile pondering over such a rectification not only when football is the issue: within eight days we had Semicon Europa in Munich, SMT/Nuremberg and Hanover Industry Fair in parallel. This was no fun. It was obviously not a wisely provided timing schedule by all these organizations, as many exhibitors and visitors were forced to remark at this different events. Yes, we are all highly interested in a smoothly-running and stress-free trade-show series in this industry – why leave our heart-rending prayers unheard?
Gerhard B. Wolski
EPP EUROPE 405





