Among the many factors which go in deciding the fate of a tradeshow, weather could be one of them. This was most obvious during the Used Machinery Expo 2008 which is being held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi from May 22-24, 2008.
A heavy rain in Delhi in the month of May was the unlikeliest thing to happen. But it rained and it rained heavily, making everyone run for cover - from exhibitors to organiser to visitors. But the weather took a U-turn by afternoon making the day bright and sunny leading to visitors thronging the venue.
The event which is being organised by Conventions & Fairs Pvt. Ltd. at Hall No. 10, had majority of exhibitors from countries like Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France. These exhibitors had expected a scorching heat in the Capital. They were however, pleasantly surprised with the cool weather.
Displaying a wide range of used machineries from Metal working, Food processing, Plastic & Rubber processing, Wood working, Telecommunication, IT and Power sector, the show had about 60 exhibitors including 40 from abroad.
Talking about the USP of the show, Nikhil Behl, Executive Director, Conventions and Fairs said, "It is the only show of its kind in the country which promotes trading of used machinery and India happens to be world's largest market of used machinery."
Elaborating on whether the West was using India as a dumping ground for used machinery, Behl said, "In the West, the industries are shrinking that's why the machineries are available in India. We are getting good machinery at good price."
Behl further said that the German machineries were high in demand in India as they are of good quality. "Most people who come here from various industries ask us for German and Swiss machinery because they know that even used machinery will give good service for another 10 years making it economically viable."
Adam Taylor of Apex Auctions, an online machine tool auction site, had his own reason for participating in the show. Adam said that the website gets more than 3000 visitors a day, out of which 30% are from India. "A strong online response from India was one of the motivating factors for us to participate in the show," he said.
Adam had already received more than 100 visitors on the first day who had signed up for demonstration. "We are expecting some 400 visitors in total, which is a fairly good number," he said. Adam was happy with the response he received on the first day and expected more enquiries in the subsequent days.
Some of the exhibitors were among the ones who had been participating in the show regularly. Haff Haines of GCH Machinery Division, a US-based company, had been to Delhi twice earlier to participate in the show. He had also been to Chennai and Mumbai, but to him Delhi was the best place to be as it gave him good business in the past.
"One of the reasons we participate in the show is to meet new customers, network with people of allied industries and for building our brand in India. It also brings us some good business. Out of 10 enquiries that we received since morning, three seems to be serious one," he elaborated.
Valentina Rot of DMG, who was participating in the show for the first time, said that India offered a good opportunity because of its booming economy and major industrial expansion plans. "We came here to participate in the show because India is a prospective buyer of used machines. Coming here also gave us an opportunity to know the market better which would help us in planning our strategies," she said.
Elke of D'Cunha GmbH, a Germany-based Company, had been participating in Indian tradeshows for the last six years and has been getting good response. "We want people to know more about our products and then take a decision. One of the reasons we got good response in the last show was because of our quality products," Elke said, hoping to get better response this time.
