A strongly positive outcome for the eighteenth PLAST-International Exhibition for the Plastics and Rubber Industries, which took place at the Fiera Milano fairgrounds in Rho-Pero from 29 May to 1 June 2018.
“It couldn’t have gone better. Our organizational office is quite satisfied with the outcome of the exhibition for at least two reasons,” stated Alessandro Grassi, President of AMAPLAST and the commercial company PROMAPLAST srl. “First of all, because our decision to introduce – together with the organizers of the other four exhibitions (IPACK-IMA, MEAT-TECH, PRINT4ALL, INTRALOGISTICA ITALIA) – the trade-fair project known as The Innovation Alliance has proved to be a winning choice: the more than 150,000 operators who participated were treated to anexhaustive range of plastics and rubber technology without precedent. The Innovation Alliance takes it place as the second largest tradeshow after the Salone del Mobile. From day one through to the closing, Corso Italia and the seventeen halls at Fiera Milano were packed with visitors.”
“Even more important, regarding PLAST in particular, and a great source of pride for us, was the great satisfaction of the exhibitors, who enjoyed the significant attendance by qualified operators and an impressive number of contracts signed directly at the fair. The expectations – already quite ambitious – ended up being outstripped by reality.”
PLAST 2018 recorded a total of some 1,500 exhibitors in 55,000 square metres of exhibition space, with significant growth of over twenty percentage points in foreign participants, affirming the international stature of the exhibition. One example of this was the significant expansion of the Chinese and Iranian collectives.
The organizational office estimates over 63,000 visitors based on statements of priority interest made by operators during the registration process. The exact number cannot be determined with any precision since the admission tickets to the five contemporary exhibitions allowed access to all seventeen exhibition halls of The Innovation Alliance.
Foreign visitors made up 27.5% of the total from a total of 117 countries, with Spain, France, and Germany being the most represented.
Some thirty official delegations were welcomed to the fair. They expressed strong admiration bordering on astonishment in interviews by the organizational office for the magnitude and
completeness of the PLAST 2018 technology showcase, and for the satellite fairs RUBBER(representing the rubber industry), 3D PLAST (additive manufacturing and related technologies), and PLAST-MAT (innovative plastics) that were part of The Innovation Alliance.
The core of the exhibition was machinery, equipment and moulds for plastics and rubber processing, with over 3,500 units on display. Industry 4.0 technology was also well represented, and also the topic of discussions in the many conferences augmenting the programme of this preeminent trade fair.
