NPE opens in Orlando with 20 percent more exhibit space

A new era in NPE history began as the giant NPE2012 international plastics exposition opened in the first new venue for NPE in 40 years, bringing an innovative agenda, an influx of new exhibitors and attendees, and an upsurge in size and dynamism.

William R. Carteaux, president and CEO of SPI, Orange County Mayor Theresa Jacobs and Visit Orlando President and CEO Gary Sain

“Moving from Chicago to Orlando was the first initiative in SPI’s strategy of ‘breaking the mold’ by creating a broader-based and more exciting NPE with new benefits for exhibitors and visitors,” said William R. Carteaux, president and CEO of SPI, which produces the triennial NPE. “Three years of work by SPI and the NPE Committee has given the industry an NPE2012 that not only substantially surpasses the recession-era NPE2009 in size and scope but is in line with the greatest NPE successes of the past.”

More than 1,900 companies are exhibiting at NPE2012, well over the totals in 2006 and 2009.

“It’s exciting to see the dramatic influx of first-time participants to the show from the Southeast United States as well as South America and Asia,” said Sain. “This group will experience the infrastructure and service orientation that Orlando has in place to host such a large and diverse group of participants.”

NPE2012 exhibitors have taken 920,000 square feet of exhibit space, 20 percent more than was occupied in 2009. Companies coming directly from outside the United States account for 40 percent of the total exhibitor count in 2012, a substantial increase from the one-third share for recent NPEs. Approximately 41 percent of these international exhibitors come from China—by far the largest contingent from that country at any NPE. Attendee registrations in 2012 are 30 percent greater than in 2009. International registrations account for 25 percent of the total, and fully half of them are from Latin America, attesting to the advantages of the Orlando venue for travelers from Mexico and Central and South America.

“NPE2012 has attracted many new first-time exhibitors and visitors, not just from other countries but from manufacturing companies in the southeastern U.S. that are within easy reach of Orlando,” said Gene Sanders, SPI senior vice president of tradeshows and conferences. “At the same time, the economic advantages of Orlando, combined with recovery in the U.S. economy, have ensured the return of our longtime exhibitors and visitors, including those that didn’t come to NPE2009 because of the Great Recession.”