Canon Communications to Acquire National Manufacturing Week

Canon Communications announced yesterday that it intends to acquire the publishing and trade show assets from Reed Elsevier that include the National Manufacturing Week trade show.

The Trade Shows being acquired include: Assembly Technology Expo, National Manufacturing Week, International Powder & Bulk Solids, and Quality Expo,  all in Rosemont, IL; NEPCON East/Assembly East, in Boston; Quality Expo  Detroit, in Novi, MI, AM Expo, in Greenville, SC; and Powder, Solids Southeast, in Atlanta.

We have long discussed and bemoaned the fate of manufacturing and CAD-related trade shows, especially in the US, although without being able to provide any fruitful answers or solutions.

In January 31, 2006, Reed announced it was putting this division up for sale and it sparked off yet more conversation across the industry about where the trade shows will end up. For us, it seems important to find out what the plans are for National Design Engineering Show (NDES) - a part of National Manufacturing Week.
But so far we have been unable to get a call back from the spokesperson at Canon. What is more important, though, is if any of the usual suspects such as PTC, SolidWorks, Autodesk and others would even consider returning to NDES - something we cannot answer with any clarity.
The recurring state of many trade shows now is that they fail to provide results for the consistently growing costs. (Pacific Design and Atlantic Design, however, have remained promising.) Can NDES get back to that kind of price - performance marketing execs are loooking for?

Comments

[Evan Yares]

Given Canon's success with Pacific Design and Atlantic Design, it seems that NDES has found a good home.

It'll be interesting to see what happens next year.