Novi's New Automotive Testing Expo Gets Off to a Flying Start

NOVI, Mich.--Oct. 3, 20030, 2003--The newest automotive show to hit town, Testing Expo North America, which is being staged at the Novi Expo Center, has got off to a great start with over 2300 attendees on the first day.

The show, which runs through to Friday 3 p.m., is exclusively about automotive testing and evaluation and features exhibits ranging from test rigs and test simulation equipment through to crash testing and quality and durability testing.

Show organizer, Tony Robinson, CEO of UK & International Press Events, says, "The first day has been a resounding success. We've had continuous feed-back from exhibitors and visitors alike who have found this highly focused automotive test engineering environment is the right formula. One of my yardsticks for event success is not so much to do with busy aisles with people walking around: I want busy booths with people locked into discussions about technology...If you look around here you'll find that pretty well every booth has got discussions going on. When you see people writing notes and drawing diagrams, the show's right and that's what's taking place here."

Exhibitors have reported that the show has surpassed their best expectations:

Dianne Bell, marketing manager, MTS

Testing Expo North America has surpassed our expectations - we've been amazed by the volume of people we saw on the first day of the show. There has been a good flow of visitors from OEMs and industry suppliers and we've made some great new contacts...We've gained over 50 leads in just one day. These leads are from 'quality' people that knew what they wanted from us.

Dr. Ing Dieter Barz, member of management, head of division vehicles, Kistler Instruments

We had a great first day; a marvelous start to the show. It's a much higher 'quality' visitor than we get at SAE because this event is focused solely on automotive testing; I don't want to meet production people...In just one day we've made over 100 contacts that I see as having potential, so we've already booked for next year.

Testing Expo North America is in a great location - I much prefer it to Cobo. This place has got lots of good hotels nearby and good access to the airport.

John Ritter, division VP, system engineering, FCS COM

Testing Expo North America has been a very positive event -- the focus on testing rather than on general automotive certainly fits our needs. The people that have come to our booth are the right type of people that we want to meet. Indeed, the press conference we held went very well -- well organized, a big crowd attended, and those that stuck around afterwards gave us a very positive response. SAE has always been the biggest show over here, but it is everything automotive -- it's too big. Testing Expo North America is really good as this is our industry with our people. This event is the right thing at the right time, and we're looking forward to coming back next year.

As for the future, Robinson says, "This show is set to see substantial growth. We've had a number of companies approach us already that did not exhibit this year who want to be here next year and a number of existing exhibitors are already talking about taking more space than they've got at present, so my guess is the show will increase from 180 exhibiting companies this year to 250 or so in 2004, probably growing in overall size by more than 50% year on year."

Testing Expo North America is open until 6:30 p.m. today (Thursday, October 30) and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. tomorrow Friday, October 31 and entry is free of charge to all people in the automotive industries.