In the course of “Swiss Plastics Expo” (www.swissplastics-expo.ch), which was staged in Lucerne at the end of January, a total of 4,400 professional visitors came to find out what the 292 exhibitors had to offer (2014: 329). Visitor numbers were thus down 12% on 2014. Trade fair director René Ziswiler was still satisfied, however. “The Swiss plastics industry is a key driver of innovations”, he explained. One potential reason for the drop in numbers is that the Swiss fair was held so soon after the “K” trade fair at the end of October 2016.

The central feature of the new trade fair concept was the “Swiss Plastics Platform”
(www.swissplasticsplatform.com), which provides a digital meeting point for all those working with plastics. With its search facilities for suppliers, services and products, the website, which is still running in its beta version, is intended to bring together exhibitors and customers in the three years up until the next trade fair in 2020. Lucerne followed a similar approach with the papers delivered at the “Innovation Symposium”. This covered a total of 22 topics, ranging from additive manufacturing and functional integration, right through to nanotechnology.