ICE UK closed its doors on 14 June after around 330 visitors had attended the no frills two day debut event at the Coventry Ricoh arena. “We delivered what we said we would,” said Michael Boyle, director at nimble shows & media, the organiser of the exhibition. “The shell stand, all-inclusive packages were built in 24 hours and provided a very efficient, low stress event for the exhibitors.” He added: “ICE UK is here to stay and we will continue to work closely with the industry with a view to delivering an even better event in 2 years time.”
Although there was some disappointment in the number of visitors, (“what do we have to do to get UK converters to exhibitions?”) many exhibitors had made some excellent contacts. And there was also clearly plenty of business to business done at the show, especially in the tape sector and by ancillary equipment producers.
Richard Ottley of Ottley Controls commented: "We are very pleased with the visitor response and have already reserved a larger booth for ICE UK in 2008." He revealed to Converting Today that the company has also recently taken over the UK sales and support for Nico Ebergrip.
David Jobson, Jarshire said: "We saw a stream of qualified visitors and even received an order from one of them the morning after the show closed."
News gleaned at the show included an announcement from Polytype Converting that it had joined forces with Alcat to provide “cost effective converting equipment”. The Casale Monferrato, Italy based Alcat offers expertise in web handling, coating, slitting and extrusion technology.
Sales director of Polytype Bruno Dätwyler told Converting Today: “We have started this co-operation to strengthen our position in the market place further, specially in the emerging markets like India, SE Asia, South America, South Africa and Eastern Europe.” He explained: “ Polytype and Alcat will work completely independently and each company will define their own product range and market strategy. This means that when the customer has decided if he wants to purchase a machine from Polytype or from ALCAT the selected company will then sign the contract, execute the project, be responsible for the quality and performance, and take care of the warranty and after sales service. With this strategy the customer has the choice between two different products with two different performance, quality and service levels.”
Webtek UK’s Stuart Grantham said the company had taken on the agency for ReNova brakes. “We saw them at Converflex Milan a few weeks ago and have now been appointed agent for the UK and Ireland. The range, which includes the multi calliper brake, compliments our other products.” In another agency deal Romtech-UK, which already represents Italwork and CMC has added rotary cutting machine producer Guidolin Davide to its portfolio. The GD-RO 175/250 was shown on the ICE stand.
ICE UK is next scheduled for September 2008.
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