“India is a growth potential country. A huge country and emerging market and it is right time to be here” – Evelyn Warwick

Evelyn Warwick, Exhibition Manager for Mack Brooks Exhibition, organizers of EuroBlech spoke to TFT on her visit to Mumbai to promote EuroBLECH 2016. Here are some excerpts from the interview. 

TFT: How does it feel to be in Mumbai, India?
Evelyn: It’s fantastic. Thank you for having me here. It’s very impressive. It’s my first time in Mumbai. Unfortunately I did not have much time to explore, but I would like to come back.

TFT: What does EuroBLECH stand for?
Evelyn: BLECH is the German word for sheet metal. So EuroBLECH itself is the international event for sheet metal working industry and we are the world leading industry fair in this area, which we are very proud of.

TFT: What is the history of EuroBLECH?
Evelyn: The first EuroBLECH started in 1969 in UK, where UK had stronger industry within sheet metal working. We then kind of evolved and went to Switzerland, we outgrew Zurich, then to Essen, Germany and now we are located every two years in Hanover, which is the world’s biggest exhibition Centre and can show of this size.

TFT: How has EuroBLECH grown over the years, in space, visitors, exhibitors and revenue?
Evelyn: It’s grown dramatically. It started in 1969, 24th exhibition this year in 2016, that is a long history so start off with a few exhibitors, 10 to 15 and evolve to EuroBLECH 2014 which had 1573 exhibitors from over 40 countries, so that is a big development and that reflects the industry and obviously that reflects the visitors figures, which have risen over the years as well.

TFT: What is your role as an Exhibition Manager?
Evelyn: I am organizing the EuroBLECH show with a team of 7 colleagues. We are locating the exhibitors, we arrange everything together with the help of the technical team, but as well with the marketing team and the press department. So we have a few helps as well. We are organizing the show, so we are promoting it to the exhibitors and we are promoting it to the visitors as well one after the other.

TFT: What kind of challenges do you face, when you are organizing a show which is at the scale of EuroBLECH?
Evelyn:It is time. There is always the time issue. You never have enough time. Everything is always a deadline orientated. There are changes which come with the time like, for a show of this size, you have the ios app, the android app, that all takes additional time, but it’s a good challenge and we have fun with it as well.

TFT: Why would you choose India as a country to come here and promote EuroBLECH?
Evelyn: India is a growth potential. It’s a huge country and emerging market and it is right time to be here and present the show to the trade media, to make everybody aware of the show.

TFT: There are very few companies that participate in EuroBLECH from India. Do you ever have any apprehensions before coming to India?
Evelyn: No, the show itself speaks for itself with the exhibitor figures, visitors figures so why should I not be here to promote it maybe to companies which could be potential exhibitors and also potential visitors.

TFT: How has the sheet metal industry grown since the time EuroBLECH started?
Evelyn: EuroBLECH started with Mack Brooks in 2004. The development of the sheet metal industry obviously became more global, more international that reflects in the exhibitors and visitor figures, economic crisis will have an impact, every show reflects the industry, so you will have the ups and the downs.

TFT: What metals would be displayed at the event?
Evelyn: It’s not so much the sheet metal itself; it’s the fabrication, the machinery, the tools which work with sheet metal, the laser which cuts the sheet metal, the press which forms the metal and the technology that is related to the sheet metal industry.

TFT: Has there been any kind of impact on the industry with Britain’s exit from the EU?
Evelyn: It’s far too early to say, but at the moment no, at this moment not an immediate impact, the time will show what it brings.

TFT: Has the British exhibitor profile changed?
Evelyn: No at the moment it has not changed. There has been no immediate impact.

TFT: The Indian version of EuroBLECH which will happen next year in 2017, has only Indian companies exhibiting. Do you or will you have any international companies displaying at the event?
Evelyn: That is really organized by my colleagues, so I am probably the wrong person to be asked.