In pictures: IMEX attracts 3,500

Organiser of this year’s IMEX Frankfurt trade show has opened with 3,500 exhibitors (including 42 new stands), more than 180 education sessions and a 12 per cent growth among the event technology section.

The show, which opened 19 April at Messe Frankfurt boasts 20 new hosted buyer groups and this year sees a later start to the group appointments system. Many European buyers have opted for the two-night programme, previously available to long-haul buyers.

Forty politicians and policymakers from around the world are at the show to take part in the 14th annual IMEX Politicians Forum where the main theme is building and sustaining a successful meetings industry with keynote speaker the New South Wales minister for trade, tourism and major events, Stuart Ayres.

At the show’s opening ceremony, keynote speaker David DuBois, president and CEO of the International Association of Exhibitions and Events (IAEE) and chair of the Covention Industry Council, said: “ The business events industry provides the catalyst for transitioning towards a knowledge and creative society. Indeed governments themselves acknowledge that it takes a meeting or summit to solve global issues and to avoid catastrophe…and when scientists, medics and technologists meet, they change the world."

IMEX Frankfurt runs until 21 April.