MACH EXHIBITION 2016

[Tom Orrow L]

Alright lads, I'm here at the Mach show today. Amazing things going on here!

Some of the bandsaws I've seen are unreal, the size of small houses!

Anyone manage to get a look around at all?

 

[Wendelspanswick]

Alright lads, I'm here at the Mach show today. Amazing things going on here!

Some of the bandsaws I've seen are unreal, the size of small houses!

Anyone manage to get a look around at all?

Is that the show at the NEC?
If it is ask for Mark on the XYZ Machinery stand for a tour and say Grasshopper sent you.

 

[matt1978]

Hi Tom,

I was also there today must of just missed you as I think you'd just left the ESSCO stand as we arrived.

 

[lchris21]

went in 2014.............awesome show, like a sweet shop for engineering geeks !!!................enjoy

 

[Tom Orrow L]

Hi Tom,

I was also there today must of just missed you as I think you'd just left the ESSCO stand as we arrived.

Aye, we were having a chat with ESSCO!
Should've come grabbed up Matt, would've been nice to meet you

 

[Tom Orrow L]

Is that the show at the NEC?
If it is ask for Mark on the XYZ Machinery stand for a tour and say Grasshopper sent you.

Didn't grab this message in time, saw a fair few of these XYZ lads knockin about though.

 

[Tom Orrow L]

went in 2014.............awesome show, like a sweet shop for engineering geeks !!!................enjoy

It was exactly like this! Pipe wedding, saws, welders galore :P

 

[tinman123]

i got a mail from a crowd ive bought off in the past about them being at that show.
when i looked it up it struck me as a show with a lot of big stuff at it, and expensive stuff too not to mention that it struck me as a show that if i needed to build aircraft landing gear then it id be right up my street but for the work id be at here it looked a bit ott for me.
there may have been smaller items but there didnt look to be much of them from the bit i seen.
would i of been right or wrong in my assumptions.

 

[Freddy0309]

The way I look at these types of shows I already have a long enough list of toys I can't afford I don't need to add to it lol

 

[Tom Orrow L]

i got a mail from a crowd ive bought off in the past about them being at that show.
when i looked it up it struck me as a show with a lot of big stuff at it, and expensive stuff too not to mention that it struck me as a show that if i needed to build aircraft landing gear then it id be right up my street but for the work id be at here it looked a bit ott for me.
there may have been smaller items but there didnt look to be much of them from the bit i seen.
would i of been right or wrong in my assumptions.

It really was amazing but the stuff there was aimed at massive business' with more money than they know how to spend.. exactly as you say.

The way I look at these types of shows I already have a long enough list of toys I can't afford I don't need to add to it lol

I was ready to get the credit card out and buy myself a much needed CNC plasma table from ESSCO :P

 

[matt1978]

I didn't really look round MACH as press brakes and laser cutters etc are not really my bag but nonetheless it did look impressive.

The welding village was tiny by comparison with only a couple of the big names exhibiting which is a great shame as the UK is the only market that I know of that doesn't have a full blown welding exhibition.

Weldex was the last UK welding exhibition and this ended about 15-18 yrs ago, weldex was simerla in size to Mach but only for welding!

Problem is now the costs for exhibiting in the UK as we speak don't represent value for money. I was speaking to one of the well known manufacturers there yesterday and for a 2x1 shell with no 400v power supply cost £10k! That will obviously not include the staffing costs and associated hotels, travel and logistics of moving stock etc.

To have something meaningful with the possibility for live demo welding there would not be much change from 50k.

You would need to create a hell of a lot of enquiries that turn into sales to even come close to recouping that and unfortunately it's a price that's too much for most UK represented manufacturers as it simply doesn't add up when you compare it to costs for regional/national exhibitions in Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands etc which get three or four times the footfall at about 50% the cost.

As I said it's a real shame.

 

[Tom Orrow L]

I didn't really look round MACH as press brakes and laser cutters etc are not really my bag but nonetheless it did look impressive.

The welding village was tiny by comparison with only a couple of the big names exhibiting which is a great shame as the UK is the only market that I know of that doesn't have a full blown welding exhibition.

Weldex was the last UK welding exhibition and this ended about 15-18 yrs ago, weldex was simerla in size to Mach but only for welding!

Problem is now the costs for exhibiting in the UK as we speak don't represent value for money. I was speaking to one of the well known manufacturers there yesterday and for a 2x1 shell with no 400v power supply cost £10k! That will obviously not include the staffing costs and associated hotels, travel and logistics of moving stock etc.

To have something meaningful with the possibility for live demo welding there would not be much change from 50k.

You would need to create a hell of a lot of enquiries that turn into sales to even come close to recouping that and unfortunately it's a price that's too much for most UK represented manufacturers as it simply doesn't add up when you compare it to costs for regional/national exhibitions in Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands etc which get three or four times the footfall at about 50% the cost.

As I said it's a real shame.

Hahaha, That is like an exact duplicate of what Jonathan was telling me yesterday.. He used to love Weldex. We've been talking about going to Essen next just to have a look around, see whats interesting and the such.. I'm assuming Essen / Beijing is a show that Lorch frequents?

 

[TechnicAl]

Weldex got too greedy. After the last one the major welding firms agreed not to do another and surprisingly the agreement has held. These days the costs run to millions so they only do Essen and push the boat out.
In truth exhibitions are never a commercial success and are more of an Industrial "mines bigger than yours". The last Weldex we decided to make it make money and took orders on the stand. They were orders we would have got anyway and we had to give bigger discounts to do it.........pointless really but we could claim to have covered the cost.

At one show I was stood there when the President (of Lincoln) came up to me and said "Hi Al, how you doing"......me "Im fine and you".......President "good and whats your biggest problem" Me "my effing feet are killing me........but if you mean about work"

I did Weldex when it was in Harrogate before it moved to the NEC.

 

[matt1978]

Hahaha, That is like an exact duplicate of what Jonathan was telling me yesterday.. He used to love Weldex. We've been talking about going to Essen next just to have a look around, see whats interesting and the such.. I'm assuming Essen / Beijing is a show that Lorch frequents?

Lorch exhibit at pretty much every major exhibition worldwide with the exception of Fabtech in the USA. Not withstanding the worldwide major ones like Essen and Beijing Essen, we also regularly do the large ones in India, Russia and China.

For the smaller regional ones

We were at Paris earlier this month and one in Italy and Spain last year.

For the larger ones,

Last year we was at Welding Week at Antwerp, this year Techni Show in Utrecht, Euroblech, in Hannover.

Next year is the biggie, Schweissen & Schnieden, Essen, as far as I know it is still the biggest in the world and it is the one everybody pushes the boat out for.

The Techni Show and Welding week are almost a carbon copy of how Weldex used to be, this is why it is so annoying that our industry in the UK doesn't have a meaningful platform.

 

[Tom Orrow L]

Lorch exhibit at pretty much every major exhibition worldwide with the exception of Fabtech in the USA. Not withstanding the worldwide major ones like Essen and Beijing Essen, we also regularly do the large ones in India, Russia and China.

For the smaller regional ones

We were at Paris earlier this month and one in Italy and Spain last year.

For the larger ones,

Last year we was at Welding Week at Antwerp, this year Techni Show in Utrecht, Euroblech, in Hannover.

Next year is the biggie, Schweissen & Schnieden, Essen, as far as I know it is still the biggest in the world and it is the one everybody pushes the boat out for.

The Techni Show and Welding week are almost a carbon copy of how Weldex used to be, this is why it is so annoying that our industry in the UK doesn't have a meaningful platform.

Hopefully i'll be seeing Lorch at Essen next year then.

Any reason why you guys don't do Fabtech?

 

[Tom Orrow L]

Weldex got too greedy. After the last one the major welding firms agreed not to do another and surprisingly the agreement has held. These days the costs run to millions so they only do Essen and push the boat out.
In truth exhibitions are never a commercial success and are more of an Industrial "mines bigger than yours". The last Weldex we decided to make it make money and took orders on the stand. They were orders we would have got anyway and we had to give bigger discounts to do it.........pointless really but we could claim to have covered the cost.

At one show I was stood there when the President (of Lincoln) came up to me and said "Hi Al, how you doing"......me "Im fine and you".......President "good and whats your biggest problem" Me "my effing feet are killing me........but if you mean about work"

I did Weldex when it was in Harrogate before it moved to the NEC.

I got the "mine is bigger than yours" vibe about the whole thing, in some cases literally. There were two industrial saw brands next to each other and it looked to me like they'd whacked their two biggest bandsaws (both roughly the size of small houses) right opposite each other just to say "look at me! I can cut thicker steel than you can!"

I saw a few lads from Lincoln knocking about yesterday, they didn't have a stand though.

I have to say for some reason or another they were getting repeatedly booed at whilst we were at the welding world awards dinner which gave a little bit of a bad vibe to the whole thing especially when the whole "theme" of the welding world is to have companies work together within the industry and not see each other as competitors.
I don't know why they only booed for Lincoln.. I've no problem with them whatsoever. I don't sell their stuff but I have no issues with them as a company.

 

[matt1978]

Because we handle the USA and Canada via a OEM (We make certain models for ESAB) so it wouldn't make sense for us to exhibit as the brand Lorch.

I had to go and do some demo welding on behalf of Thermal Arc at Fabtech about 8 years ago, luckily for me this was the first time fabtech had been held at Las Vegas!

But as an actual exhibition, the single largest in North America, it was pretty dire and disappointing. Not a patch on the major European ones.

 

[matt1978]

I have to say for some reason or another they were getting repeatedly booed at whilst we were at the welding world awards dinner which gave a little bit of a bad vibe to the whole thing especially when the whole "theme" of the welding world is to have companies work together within the industry and not see each other as competitors.
I don't know why they only booed for Lincoln.. I've no problem with them whatsoever. I don't sell their stuff but I have no issues with them as a company.

Who was boo'ing?

That's bad form.

I didn't bother pursuing the Awards thing, it struck me as a little self serving, given that you had to nominate your own company, beg for votes from your customers and then do a presentation to a panel as to why you feel you deserve the award.

I did nominate Lorch in a couple of categories but couldn't be fussed with the presentation side so withdrew.

 

[Tom Orrow L]

I had no idea Lorch made some ESAB stuff, very interesting.. Another brand which are alright in my books. Which models is it exactly? if you don't mind me asking.

Who was boo'ing?

That's bad form.

I didn't bother pursuing the Awards thing, it struck me as a little self serving, given that you had to nominate your own company, beg for votes from your customers and then do a presentation to a panel as to why you feel you deserve the award.

I did nominate Lorch in a couple of categories but couldn't be fussed with the presentation side so withdrew.

I agree with you there Matt, We didn't nominate ourselves though.. We were already in the E-commerce category so We just asked for some votes and got them.

I think the "self serving" side of things was done more by the main company that runs the Welding World (you know who I mean) & if I'm honest.. Everybody knew exactly who was going to win each category even before they'd announced it. Serving themselves, their friends & the people who they want to make the most money from.. I.e the two massive distributors that aren't currently part of the AWD (mentioning no names).

It thoroughly irked myself & Jonathan as it was so clear that companies that had no right to be winning prizes were simply because they had a close association with certain people. I wasn't even bothered that we only got 2nd place in our category, It was the fact that companies in other categories who deserved to win like EWM, Air Liquide etc.. didn't get anything at all.

We had some chaps from Polysoude sat on our table & they were howling about the choices of category winners, some top class lads.

A disappointing night to say the least, My respect for a few people completely disappeared at that dinner.

 

[matt1978]

Yes I had a inkling it would go that way so I didn't bother.

I was surprised EWM hadn't even been shortlisted as a finalist as they were in the same category that I nominated us in originally, but then I thought that maybe he didn't bother with the presentation part either.