Events

China Sourcing premiere
The first China Sourcing, which was held in Düsseldorf between 12 and 24 September, attracted more than 3 000 buyers from 20 nations. The organisers, Reed Exhibitions Germany together with CCCME, the Chinese foreign trade association, registered lively cross-border interest in new business contacts within the Middle Kingdom. As fair director Britta Wirtz said, “With China Sourcing, we have achieved our goal of creating for the first time an event that enables major customers in particular from commerce and industry throughout Europe to make the acquaintance of new business partners and their products from more than 200 companies in China.” There were around 40 exhibitors represented in the “Hardware” section. Central buyers from the wholesale and export trade (30.8 per cent), the department store, hypermarket and mail order business (6 per cent) and customers from industry (24.4 per cent) took advantage of the fair for their purchasing and procurement marketing.
Rather restrained reactions
The first Collectione fair, held from 12 to 15 June, attracted around 500 exhibitors to Frankfurt, where they presented their ranges of products in categories that included decoration, garden, housewares and gift items.
Collectione is advertised by the organisers as the first international consumer goods fair to concentrate exclusively on the medium to high-volume market for such goods, and to be scheduled at such an early date.
The aim is to attract top decision-makers and bulk buyers from the large-scale trading channels. The organisers counted 8 600 visitors altogether on the four days of the fair, with one in three of them coming from abroad (64 countries).
The timing of the Collectione events is good: a great number of exhibitors consider the dates for the 2006 event ideal. Nevertheless, reactions at the premiere of the fair were rather restrained, even though some of the exhibitors did show great satisfaction with the result.
Fastener Fair to carry on in Stuttgart
The Fastener Fair in Stuttgart on 14 and 15 September was the meeting-place for specialists from the connector and fastener industry. The event comprised 198 exhibitors from 27 countries and covered all aspects of connecting and fastening technology. The majority of the exhibitors came from Germany, closely followed by Asia, the United Kingdom and Italy. Attending the fair were 1603 visitors from 51 countries. The majority of 94 per cent came from Europe, with almost half of that figure…