In a Q&A session, tradeshow organiser Easyfair’s head of marketing, Jeremy Whittingham provides Aerospace Manufacturing with a progress update in the lead-up to Advanced Engineering 2019.

From 30-31 October at the NEC Birmingham, Advanced Engineering will incorporate not only the latest developments in aerospace engineering, but the whole gamut of UK manufacturing. Now in its eleventh year, the show has become one of the biggest events in the UK manufacturing calendar.

Q) Please provide an update on the progress of the show, i.e. exhibitors booked in and anticipated visitor attendance figures?

After a record onsite rebooking last November, exhibitor stand sales are running at 10% higher than this time last year, and floor space is approximately 76% booked at this stage. We have a new area in the Aero Engineering show floor on Space and Satellite manufacturing and supply chain, plus significant new pavilion areas taken by the Surface Engineering Association, British Coatings Federation, GTMA, and the Aluminium Federation.

Responding to popular feedback, we will also re-introduce our Enabling Innovation Zone, allowing a select number of start-ups the opportunity to showcase their innovations in front of the industry. Once again, this initiative will be supported and co-judged by Innovate UK and the KTN, and will invite applications from all sectors.

Q) What compelling reasons can the show offer aerospace SMEs to take up a stand and exhibit?

There are real reasons for aero-related players to be exhibiting and we are working with the support of the ADS Group to encourage even more of the aerospace supply chain to see and understand the benefits of taking a stand at Advanced Engineering. After all, the Aero Engineering show zone is the UK’s only 100% dedicated supply chain event, and continues to bring in representatives from all the key OEM and tier one manufacturers as visitors.

It is worth noting that many of our aerospace-related exhibitors exhibit in other parts of the show floor, be it composites, automotive, or even medical device engineering for instance, as this sometimes reflects their thoughts on overall hall location (i.e., not wishing to be close to a competitor), or their focus for the current year. Already on board for this year are the likes of: PPG Aerospace, Farnborough Aerospace Consortium, Materion Aerospace Metal Composites, Cecence, Curtiss-Wright, Poeton, GE Inspection, Advanced Aerospace Assembly and Westwind Air Bearings, among others.

Q) Interest in your aerospace conference forums has increased. Are people using the show as a means of keeping in touch with the industry?

This indeed confirms we’re bringing in the right visitors within aerospace, with relevance within the show presentation content. I firmly believe the take-up is chiefly a function of the particularly high presentation content, which is itself a result of our delving deeper into the industry. As show organisers, we have, over the past 12 months, visited more industry events, made more contacts, and joined more industry associations than ever before. We have also been proactively contacting and meeting our visitors to find out what their main industry issues and concerns are, and how we can help them to make their jobs and lives more efficient, profitable and enjoyable. This also extends to those visitors who weren’t able to attend the show on the day, as well as those who did.

Q) Do school and college children attend the show to get enthused about engineering, or does the event clash with half term?

As is usual with trade events of this nature, we and the NEC don’t allow visitors under the age of 16 into the event as it is mainly focused on industry - with the intrinsic health and safety issues this involves. However, skills and the next generation are very important and we tread a balance between ensuring our exhibitors see existing career-engineers who can make decisions today, whilst attracting and inspiring the young engineers of tomorrow, who are perhaps still in higher education or research, and who are desperately needed to help fill the skills gap. We are working with some new and key partners who will be helping us to communicate ideas and inspiration, including Women in Engineering, Surface Engineering Association’s ‘Surface Engineering Leadership Forum’, STEM, University of Cambridge’s Institute of Manufacturing, and many more.

Q) Is the show connected to the big OEMs with the power to invest or is there the frustration that your appeal and target audience comprises smaller SMEs?

Of course, we’re always working to maintain and develop attendance of the OEMs and higher tier companies as visitors. These are key to the decision-makers who many of our exhibitors want to see, so it is within our own interest as the show organiser to do this. We had the highest exhibitor rebooking rate ever at last year’s show so we are clearly doing something right. We’ve never been so connected as we are now into this level of the industry, with regular contact from a growing number of show ambassadors and advisory board members representing a range of OEM and tier one manufacturers, and we are not stopping there.

It’s also worth noting that ADS Group, organisers of the Farnborough Airshow see Advanced Engineering as an extremely important event which complements by providing a specifically focused manufacturing chain platform for many of those vitally important smaller and mid-sized players in the industry, and of course which offers opportunities into other parallel sectors outside of aerospace. We shouldn’t forget the importance of SMEs in general - including many of those driving forward innovation and ideas, which Advanced Engineering is increasingly encouraging and exposing for the OEMs and tier ones to discover and invest in.

Q) Do you feel your show achieves its goals in terms of the ‘not so easy to measure’ things like the UK industry’s competitiveness and its ability to export as well as welcome investment from overseas?

I think the two types of measurement go hand in hand, as the show will only be a commercial success with the right attendance, and in turn this will only come from our being there to provide unique and tangible opportunities for growth, and providing solutions for global competitiveness and improved efficiencies. This is where a face to face event comes into its own: i.e. being able to bring the right people together under a single roof, providing more opportunities in one day than you would get in a month of going out on the road, and being able to compare and make clearer decisions and insights faster than spending days scouring the internet – that in itself provides an efficiency which helps competitiveness! Our relationships with the Department for International Trade, and increasingly with overseas regional industry bodies add further to investment and export opportunities, and we estimate that last year’s show was responsible overall for some £280 million of orders placed or pledged across the advanced engineering supply chain.

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