The global site of the UK's leading magazine for automation, motion engineering and power transmission
19 March, 2024

LinkedIn
Twitter
Twitter link

Government gives the go-ahead for UK trade shows to restart

21 July, 2020

The UK government has given the green light for trade exhibitions to start again from October this year. One of the first events to be held will be the cluster of nine manufacturing exhibitions, including the Drives & Controls Show and Smart Industry Expo, taking at place at the Birmingham NEC next January.

The Association of Events Organisers (AEO) has issued new guidelines – endorsed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport – to ensure that shows and exhibitions can go ahead safely. The guidelines, known as the All Secure Standard, cover aspects such as social distancing, crowd densities, staggered admissions, visitor transport, conferences, food and drinks, cleaning and communications.

Three more events – the subcontract manufacturing show Subcon, The Engineer Expo and the Manufacturing Management Show – have recently joined the NEC January line-up, potentially creating the largest UK manufacturing event in a generation.

The roster now includes:
The Drives & Controls Show
Smart Industry Expo
Air-Tech
Fluid Power & Systems
Plant & Asset Management
Mach 2021
Subcon
The Engineer Expo
The Manufacturing Management Show

The first five of these events are being organised by DFA Media, the publisher of Drives & Controls, Smart Machines & Factories, and Hydraulics & Pneumatics magazines. Mach is organised by the MTA, and the three new events by MA Exhibitions.

The DFA events will run for three days from Monday 25 January until Wednesday 27. The Mach show will run for four days from 25–28 January, and the three new events will run for three days from 26–28 January.

The Drives & Controls Show will be one of nine manufacturing events drawing visitors to the NEC in January 2021

Together, the events will take over eight halls of the NEC and are expected to attract many thousands of visitors, who will be able to access all of the events. The previous DFA events in 2018 attracted more than 13,500 visitors, while more than 23,100 attended the five-day Mach event. When it was last held in 2019, the Subcon show had more than 250 exhibitors and drew more than 4,000 visitors.

“January 2021 will be a pivotal period for UK manufacturing, therefore the Drives & Controls Show and its co-located events will be a unique opportunity to help manufacturers source the technologies they need to help them both recover and take advantage of new opportunities,” says DFA Media’s managing director, Ian Atkinson.

The organisers of Mach and Subcon say that, by pooling their resources, expertise and experience, they will be better able to help UK manufacturing and engineering businesses to bounce back as the economy starts to rebuild and adapts to the “new normal”.

“We want to create a celebration of UK manufacturing and engineering, where we can showcase all of the amazing work that this industry has done in the battle against Covid-19, not just in the UK, but overseas as well,” says Subcon portfolio director, Gordon Kirk.




Magazine
  • To view a digital copy of the latest issue of Drives & Controls, click here.

    To visit the digital library of past issues, click here

    To subscribe to the magazine, click here

     

Poll

"Do you think that robots create or destroy jobs?"

Newsletter
Newsletter

Events

Most Read Articles