For the first time since 2018, SurfaceTechnology in Stuttgart was once again held as an in-person trade fair from June 21-23, 2022. Around 3000 trade visitors from Germany and neighboring EU countries experienced a successful restart. 220 exhibitors, almost one in three of whom came from abroad, presented solutions, products and services at the surface technology industry get-together and showed what the current trends in the surface industry are.
"It was a successful re-launch. Exhibitors and visitors were very satisfied with how the event went," said a delighted Hendrik Engelking, Global Director Surface Technology at Deutsche Messe AG. "We are very satisfied with the number of visitors under the given conditions, especially as the quality was extremely high."
After Germany, the strongest visitor countries were Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, Austria, India, the Netherlands, France and Slovenia. For the first time, the event recorded a 100% share of trade visitors. One in three came from top management, one in four from department head level. Almost one in three visitors came to the trade fair with very specific investment intentions. When asked what the aim of their visit to the trade fair was, most of them stated: the search for new products, an overview of the market and the search for suppliers and new business contacts. After an enforced break of two years, the need to maintain existing contacts was very pronounced.
Further training and expanding knowledge were also a frequently mentioned goal. A third of visitors were also looking for specific solutions for their own company.
According to the survey, most visitors to the trade fair came from the metalworking and processing industry, closely followed by the automotive, mechanical and plant engineering, electronics and plastics industries. Users from the aerospace, medical technology, semiconductor and precision engineering industries also used the trade fair to find out about solutions, products and services from the surface treatment industry.
"Our co-exhibitors have drawn a consistently positive initial conclusion and, as four years ago, are very impressed by the quality of visitors and discussions, even though the number of visitors felt lower than in 2018. The ZVO is optimistic that SurfaceTechnology 2024 will once again match the exhibitor and visitor numbers from the pre-corona period," commented Christoph Matheis, Managing Director of the German Surface Technology Association (ZVO), which presented a joint stand with around 60 companies, on this year's trade fair.
The specialist forum, the central point of contact for knowledge transfer and exchange of experience, was well attended on all days. With an extensive program of 48 presentations in total, the forum offered an insight into the current world of surface technology. The presentations on the use of laser technology were met with great interest, as were the possibilities for creating functional surfaces using PVD processes and the wide range of technologies covered by the term alternative coating processes. Above all, however, it became clear that coating companies are currently working on using the possibilities of data processing, which are on everyone's lips under the acronyms AR, VR or AI, increasingly in daily practice and thus making their processes more efficient. After all, the shift in the automotive industry towards e-mobility plays an important role for a large number of coating companies.
