News from the Road ...

European Trade Mission
Day 2 - Hannover Messe
 
With all of the passport drama of the previous day behind me, I started the morning out refreshed and energized ... and boy was I going to need a lot of energy!  My morning started with a breakfast meeting at 8:30 a.m. followed by a hectic schedule of back-to-back meetings at the trade show. 

Let me just state for the record, this is not your average trade show.  Hannover Messe is the single largest industrial trade fair in the world with over 4,000 exhibitors.  I know that may sound big, but you really can’t appreciate just how big it is unless you see it.  Literally, we’re talking about 27 halls of exhibitors -- and all of the “halls” are large buildings. 

So the Hannover complex is set up for 27 large buildings, all full of exhibitors -- some of which have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their state-of-the-art exhibits, not to mention the cost of shipping their equipment in for demonstrations.  The show is so big, that they have three different shuttle lines taking people around the show from hall to hall.  If you have one meeting in "Hall 3" and then your next meeting is in "Hall 20," it could literally take you a good 20 minutes to get from place to place on foot.  I learned first-hand today just how important those shuttle are!  It is truly impressive -- and this is coming from someone who has seen a lot of trade shows. 

I was so glad that we had strategically secured pre-arranged meetings with exhibitors and other companies and that we had a set agenda for my time at this trade show.  Otherwise, it would have been very easy to get lost in the sheer size of the show and become overwhelmed. 

I had meetings with eight companies today and two consulting firms.  I met with companies across the advanced manufacturing spectrum from a die casting company for the wind industry to a power capacitor manufacturer to a specialty, precision components manufacturer.   Before I knew it, it was already 6 p.m.!  The day just flew by.  All of my meetings were really good.  All eight companies will be good future prospects, and I would classify three of them as “warm” leads.  These are companies that are actively pursuing plans to establish a presence in the U.S. market, and that would be a good fit for the Indianapolis region. 

Today was certainly a great day!  It was a business development professional’s dream -- a target-rich environment with little to no competition.  Clearly, the volcano had an impact on the attendance at the show. 

As unhappy as I was that some of my Indiana colleagues were unable to join, I realized that this was also the fate of our competitors from other states and regions in the U.S.  In every meeting that I had, people were amazed that I had made it from the U.S and they were excited that I (an American) had made the journey!  This told me that 1.) Americans were scarce at the show and 2.) that I was probably one of the few U.S. economic development representatives in attendance with the exception of states or regions that are represented with foreign offices in Europe.  In fact, despite some of our cancellations, I believe Indiana was well represented because the State’s European office (contracted through IEDC) had scheduled meetings beginning Monday, through this afternoon and had advised me on other contacts I should follow up with later in the week.  Working in collaboration with IEDC, I think we will definitely cover a lot of ground at this show. 

I am looking forward to tomorrow and another full day of scheduled meetings!

Also, just for fun, I thought I would share a video I found on YouTube from a company with a presence in the Indianapolis region that is the single largest exhibitor at Hannover Messe.