NPE2012 kicks off in Orlando

After the doldrums of the Great Recession, North America’s biggest plastics trade show has kicked off what organizers hope will be a new era.

Opening on April 1 in Orlando, Fla., the NPE2012 international plastics exposition is being held in the first new venue for the triennial NPE in 40 years – and with an expanded exhibition list.

More than 1,900 companies are exhibiting at NPE2012, a figure described by show producer the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) as “well over the totals in 2006 and 2009.”

Companies coming directly from outside the U.S. – including Canada – account for 40 per cent of the total exhibitor count in 2012, a substantial increase from the one-third share for recent NPEs, SPI said. “Approximately 41 per cent of these international exhibitors come from China, by far the largest contingent from that country at any NPE,” SPI said. “Attendee registrations in 2012 are 30 per cent greater than in 2009. International registrations account for 25 per cent of the total, and fully half of them are from Latin America, attesting to the advantages of the Orlando venue for travelers from Mexico and Central and South America.”

“Moving from Chicago to Orlando was the first initiative in SPI’s strategy of ‘breaking the mold’ by creating a broader-based and more exciting NPE with new benefits for exhibitors and visitors,” said William R. (Bill) Carteaux, president and CEO of SPI. “Three years of work by SPI and the NPE Committee has given the industry an NPE2012 that not only substantially surpasses the recession-era NPE2009 in size and scope but is in line with the greatest NPE successes of the past.” 

“NPE2012 has attracted many new first-time exhibitors and visitors, not just from other countries but from manufacturing companies in the southeastern U.S. that are within easy reach of Orlando,” said Gene Sanders, SPI senior vice president of trade shows and conferences. “At the same time, the economic advantages of Orlando, combined with recovery in the U.S. economy, have ensured the return of our longtime exhibitors and visitors, including those that didn’t come to NPE2009 because of the Great Recession.” 

The show runs at Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center until April 5.

Beginning soon, Canadian Plastics will showcase some of the new technologies previewed at the show on our website.