Yes indeed, the new location was far better to navigate around than the three-floor fiasco of last year – the only gripe really is that it’s a long way out of the city, there’s nothing much to do in the evening if you are based anywhere out near Villepinte (a torturous bus tour around an industrial estate anyone?), and the French train/Metro service decided to throw a strike. How very inconvenient. However, this didn’t affect my ardour and passion for what the show had to offer, oh no. There were the many eateries’ sandwich/baguette fillings of unknown origin to sample before I was done with JEC World! So, where to start? Well, I checked the international press magazine stand to see whether both my Aerospace Manufacturing and Composites in Manufacturing issues had arrived – they had, which was a good start. Dieffenbacher, KraussMaffei, Aristo and Eastman were all close by, so I swooped on their stands and introduced Composites in Manufacturing’s new automotive supplement: http://magazine.composites-manufacturing.com/2016/feb_mar/files/21.html. By mid-morning, the aisles were packed: this show is really doing something very right in getting both visitors and exhibitors to attend. Year on year, the appetite for all things composites is growing. This is my seventh year at the show (well, maybe sixth – there was a snow storm and a volcano or something to prevent me journeying there one year!) and without doubt this was the biggest yet. Well done JEC organisers and Apocope Agency too. Elsewhere, Hexion's stand was buzzing! I have to stop and wonder where the idle talk of a 'flat 2016' comes from when the majority of stands I visited were just so incredibly busy. "Look Mike, I'd like to stop and talk, but I've got customers to deal with," was, whilst not exactly said to me, but intimated, happened on more than one occasion. 'Component' of the show was, for me, the Evonik/Litecon/Benteler SGL automotive part. A work of art. 'Beard' of the show goes to Simon Green of Sigmatex. I saw its magnificence enter the aisle I was in before he did. That nice Alex Auken of the Cytec/Solvay behemoth was unveiled as the new chair of the Composites Leadership Forum, replacing Alison Starr who moves on to the NCC. Composites UK's Sue Halliwell was hopping and bobbing around barefooted over chair-tops to snap some presentation photos. It was like a scene from Dirty Dancing! Whoa, wait – what was that? I must be on the UKTI/NCC/Composites UK stand - I nearly walked past and missed it. I then walked smack into the Saxony region stand area, and then the Loire region stand area, and then the Germany, China, US, Midi-Pyrenees region stands – and alas, they were pretty large in comparison. In my attempt to build a mind map of the show’s UK involvement, I’d say the UK’s R&D, academic, organisational and consultancy components are arguably leading the world. I desperately want the UK composites industry and its stakeholders to succeed in all this. It's a brilliant industry, full of gifted, crazy and talented people and companies making the most beautiful and technically amazing components. What seemed to be lacking this year, were the attendance of more home-grown, British-owned companies willing to put themselves in the spotlight at shows like JEC World. How else are you going to win more business on a world stage? What are you waiting for? Is there anybody out there? Mike Richardson, editor
