Fish
I've had to admit the fact that EPPM's trip to EuroMold 2014 was not part of our plan for which shows we would attend at the beginning of the year.
In fact, I really attended the Frankfurt-based event as little more than a stowaway. To cut a long story short, fellow Rapid News title TCT Magazine makes an annual pilgrimage to EuroMold to spread the word about its top additive manufacturing journalism and its popular yearly show in Birmingham. When the flights and hotels for EuroMold 2014 were booked, I was still a reporter on TCT Magazine and David Gray was still Editor of EPPM. When I made the leap across the newsroom to join Team Plastics in July, Rapid News decision-makers deemed it acceptable that I still attend EuroMold with my old team, as the show has deep industrial roots and some of our friends and advertisers would be attending, making it a potentially fruitful trip.
Having attended EuroMold before, I thought I knew what to expect; but then I hadn't really ventured into Hall 8.0 - the tooling and mould-making hall - before. EuroMold has transformed itself into a major 3D printing platform and Hall 11.0 is its busiest, most animated Hall. EPPM spent some time in Hall 11.0 where we spoke to Proto Labs, quizzing members of the team on where 3D printing sits in the supply chain now the 'desktop hype' has ebbed away. We also spoke to Stratasys and took the tour of their amazing double-decker stand in the heart of the show floor, where we were given the chance to spend some time in a 3D-printed aeroplane cabin, admire the photo-realistic quality of the company's multi-coloured, multi-material 3D printing technology, and handle some 3D-printed bits and pieces that have made it to the big screen as movie props.
Not only did Stratasys have a stand in Hall 11.0, but it had an art gallery space in the foyer outside of Hall 11.0 and - interestingly for me - the company also pitched up on a modestly-sized stand in Hall 8.0 alongside the tooling companies and mould-makers.
Understanding Stratasys' move to have a stand in both halls, I began to feel akin to the 3D printing leader. One thing I have learnt since leaving TCT Magazine and moving over to EPPM is that the 3D printing industry might make a lot of noise right now, but the space is actually quite small compared to the European and international plastics market. Working on a 3D printing magazine is like being a big fish in a small pond, whereas working on a plastics magazine is very much being a small fish in a big pond - which is no bad thing.
This is what Stratasys and Proto Labs have stated and they too have stepped up to the challenge of being a small fish in a big pond to some extent. Stratasys' booth in Hall 8.0 is not the biggest, but the company knows that it's going to outgrow pure additive manufacturing as the hype continues to subside, knowing it must adapt and find its place in the ocean of manufacturing, where it will not be the definitive market leader like it can be in the still-maturing 3D printing community.
This notion that the hype bubble has indeed burst - or else it's reaching its elastic limit - was evident in the fantastic array of industrial applications demonstrated in Hall 11.0. At EuroMold in 2013 it seemed like the desktop 3D printing "everybody will own one" foghorn would never cease tooting, which is why I am maintaining my interest and contacts in the 3D printing community because I believe it is bound to play a much larger role in the plastics processing sphere than it has previously, as companies adapt their strategies to ensure they can compete.
In addition to spending time with the 3D printing companies, I spent some time making new friends and investing further in old friends in Hall 8.0, in addition to introducing as many people as I could to EPPM's printed magazines and the features we have to offer in our 2015 Media Kit, with some interest. I had hoped to come across a story or two on my rounds...
You see, as a journalist, at trade shows it's par for the course to newsgather; attend interview sessions when invited to by marketing and PR officers; sit in on press conferences; collect media packs from the press lounge; ask questions as you go. When working on TCT Magazine this was easy because everything was new. A new exciting application, a new acquisition, a new machine, a new material. Newsgathering in the mould-making and tooling sectors is not the buffet experience it is in 3D printing simply because the industry is very mature, very developed, and so 'news' is thinner on the ground - but I know it's there - and I hope that if EPPM returns to EuroMold in the future, we will be a little better known, a little better-informed and will be able to sniff out the stories with a little less difficulty.
Mould-making and tooling are crucial arms to the plastic processing industry and it was a pleasure and a privilege to get the chance to spend so much time getting to know the companies that lead the way in this field, in addition to broadening my own knowledge, on a trip that was never really meant to be part of EPPM's plan. So here's to happy accidents!
To read up on the news we gleaned from EuroMold 2014, click here.
