MEDIA-TECH Europe 2009 Post Highlights

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Different is Good: New MEDIA-TECH Europe Format a Success


Joint Equipment Show and Conference Favored by Visitors and Exhibitors


Frankfurt, May 5, 2009 – The recent, new format MEDIA-TECH Europe 2009 event – In Touch with Tomorrow’s Storage Technology Today – proved to be in line with what people wanted from the show, with attendance similar to that of last year. “We had approximately 1,200 people at the show, about 900 of whom were visitors and conference attendees,” says MEDIA-TECH Association Bryan Ekus, “along with 64 exhibiting companies.”


Virtually every country in the world was represented, with many exhibitors seeing customers and potential customers not just from Europe but also from the Middle East, North and South America and Asia.


“One of the most valuable things that came out of the show, for everyone in the industry, was the discussions the Association had with various other industry organizations, and the replicators – our members’ customers, and the heart of the industry,” adds Ekus. “This has highlighted a number of ways in which the Association can, and will, work towards helping everyone in the optical media industry move forward to create and take advantage of business opportunities to ensure the success not only of Blu-ray Disc but also other existing storage formats such as CD and DVD.”


The overall response from both exhibitors and visitors was that the combined conference and exhibition is a good idea and that Frankfurt continues to be the location of choice for industry events. “The ability to see machinery functioning on the show floor was also a popular request, and that is something we will look at increasing for the next show,” Ekus explains.


Many things were different about this year’s show: it returned to Europe for a second year, following overwhelming feedback that the bulk of the industry, being Europe-based, prefers not to incur the cost of shipping machinery to the US. Other changes were a smaller venue, the involvement of industry bodies and associations, and the inclusion a number of conference programmes running in parallel.


“We knew we had made the right decision to go with a smaller venue when the space was over-subscribed early on, ”Ekus continues.  “Regarding the conferences, attendance there also showed that this is what people want, particularly as the times were staggered to allow visitors to see the show floor and listen to presentations.”

This year’s event, in addition to a two-day conference programme organized by Futuresource Consulting, contained a one-day Blu-ray technical seminar organized and presented by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), along with a Blu-ray Road show presented by Sony DADC, and a number of technical workshops run by exhibiting companies. The IDDA (International Disc Duplication Association) also held a conference at the event, which was deemed to have been a great success.

Speaker presentations and podcasts of the sessions can be downloaded free of charge from the MEDIA-TECH Association website (www.media-tech.net).


Show sponsors included Sony DADC (VIP conference sponsor), the Blu-ray Disc Association (conference sponsor), M2 Engineering (networking party sponsor), and media sponsor One to One, which also featured on the show badges. The RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) badges for this year’s event, manufactured specially by German replicator CDA Datenträger Albrechts GmbH, contained all the event information, along with a digital copy of One to One.

 
“The involvement of organization such as the BDA and the IDDA provided an extra element of interest to our visitors, and I would like to thank them for their participation,” says Association chair Marianne Sernevi. “Thanks also go to our sponsors for their assistance in helping with the extras that help to make the event a success, and to Singulus, who provided lunch for the attendees of the Blu-ray Technical Seminar.”