Paris certainly worked its spring magic at this year's in-cosmetics (17-19 April). SPC spoke to some very contented visitors
The 18th edition of in-cosmetics in Paris turned out to be not only the largest in-cosmetics event to-date in terms of exhibitors and floorspace but also in visitor numbers. The number of unique visitors over the three days was up a massive 30% to 6,162 (total including revisits 10,673). Of these 37% were French_but a massive 63% of visitors were International.
This year the show's special in-focus feature highlighted the theme of Aphrodisia. Many exhibitors developed stories and products around this and there was a hive of activity around the feature, with many exhibitors reporting that they were seeing more visitors there than on their main stands. Certainly a number of visitors had to make several attempts before they actually succeeded in getting into the area it was simply so busy.
With Aphrodisia at the back of exhibitors' minds, with Paris as the location and with the tremendous number of visitors, it was no surprise that the mood at the show was buoyant. Exhibitors found traffic steady and declared Paris as a venue to play a significant role in attracting visitors.
“Berlin came top, Barcelona was low, but Paris is an all time high,” said Dirk Teichmüller, president and ceo, Rovi Cosmetics. “The amount of traffic depends on many things - the venue, the location of the booth and whether you have news. We are in favour of in-cosmetics. It's the show we like to attend the most.”
Univar's industry business director, Roger Chantillon commented: “every year the show is nicer and bigger. It used to be just a meeting place but now the whole thing is more professional and the approach of suppliers is more professional.”
“The show is very well organised and well run, with a good range of people internationally,” said Tom Balsamides, vp sales, Protameen Chemicals Inc. “I feel with a show like this we reach people we wouldn't normally see face to face. There is a good flow of traffic and customers, and it is an opportunity for us to introduce our new technology globally.”
Robert Scheib, communications leader, Momentive Performance Materials described the show as an excellent presentation tool for the industry. “The quality of the meetings has been extremely good - we have had the chance to sit down and have some really good quality conversations with our customers,” He said. “The show allows customers to sit down with suppliers,” added the company's global marketing manager, personal care, Beatriz Blanco. “It's the only show where there is real communication and there are always lots of sales afterwards.”
And with so many visitors there were certainly new faces on the scene. “We've met a lot of new companies and made a lot of new contacts,” commented Linda de Freitas of Active Organics. And Gianfranco Secchi of Italian company Kelisema was certainly surprised by the fact that he'd even met with new companies attending from his native Italy.
“This year's show is the best one we've had,” said Franz Suter, product manager, Mibelle. “There has been good quality customers, and we can discuss problems and interests. If you want to be in this industry you must be at this show.”
“In my opinion it's the best show in the world” said Zenitech's Carter La Vay. “I could do the show in Paris every year. It's a good location and from morning to night we have been busy. The quality of the people has also been excellent - a real cross section and you get to talk to so many of them.”
“Paris always attracts a lot of people so that's why there are more visitors here than there were even in Barcelona,” commented Sylvie Mirasole, senior sales manager, business unit, cosmetic ingredients, Jan Dekker. “I've said to the organisers that it's really important to come back to Paris more often. Next year the show is scheduled for Amsterdam. It's a very nice city but there is not so much potential for the cosmetics industry there. The organisers have explained that it will attract German and Polish visitors so we'll see. Our company is Dutch so it's important for us to celebrate in-cosmetics in Amsterdam and we will be investing more in next year's show.”
Watch out for a full review of the show itself with details of all the exciting new ingredients. We'll also be reviewing the trends presentations and the technical sessions.