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Only Lyon with a bad good decision

The 2016 edition of the four-day French environment technology trade show Pollutec ended yesterday. While final figures have yet to be released from the organisers, in-real-life (IRL) encounters on the floor and in-virtual-life (IVL) impressions from the cloud suggest it could be a record-breaking edition. At least as far the energy section of the exhibition is concerned I should add.

onlylyon

Spending only one day at the show, the last day at that, does not do the entire event justice. Time constraints meant my priority was to check out the energy section first and everything else, including the largest section of the event with material handling, recycling, size reduction etc later. Why? This was the emerging part of the event with biogas and medium-scale boiler OEM’s when I visited it back in 2014 the last time it was held in Lyon. So I figured, check this out first as it probably wouldn’t take too long whereas I’d miss it if started with anything else.

That proved to be a bad good decision on my part as it resulted in most of the exhibition being entirely unseen. Nope, I didn’t even walk through hall 1, 2, 3 or 6 once – straight to hall 4 and got stuck into it, quite literally. The last company I spoke to was at closing time on my way out. They were in the midst of booth teardown but they kindly took timeout and we had a good chat. And that is how the entire day was spent, circulating around the stands in hall 4 chatting with familiar faces and new acquaintances getting the what’s up.

Even on the last day of Pollutec the aisles in hall 4 were bustling.
Even on the last day of Pollutec the aisles in hall 4 were bustling. Even on the last day of Pollutec the aisles in hall 4 were bustling.

As it happens Friday was as the perfect day for someone like me to talk to exhibitors in hall 4. Apparently it had been quite the rush of visitors the first three days with concrete enquiries, projects, request for quotes and the like – the type of contact that one wants at a trade show. Not just from France or the francophone world though this is where the vast majority of visitors come from. This meant that not only had companies the time to talk, they were quite willing to do so and pretty upbeat about three well-attended quality days. Initial reviews ranged from “as expected”, “positively surprised” to “one of the best trade shows all-categories in recent years”.

Pollutec 2018 has been duly noted as “must attend” with more than one day.

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