The 28th edition of Xylexpo, the biennial international exhibition of woodworking and furniture technology, has opened today. It’s a complicated edition, with plenty of afterthoughts about how and where future exhibitions should be organized, but it will have the unquestionable benefit of being held few weeks from the definition of the new “Industry 5.0” measures. So, most of all, it will be a valuable place to see first-hand what manufacturers are offering for digital transition and sustainability, both concepts representing the foundations of the new measures designed to support the “digital and energy transition” of companies.
Xylexpo is changing its time slot, going back to its traditional May calendar, abandoned only in 2022, when the exhibition was held in October due to the problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which also affected the exhibition calendars.
And, for the first time, the event will close on Friday: it will run from Tuesday 21 to Friday 24, in line with international habits preferred by users who more and more often choose to spend the weekend away from their job.
Talking about visitors, the organizers are expecting to get close to the 2022 figures, a result that was achieved thanks to the “reopening” after the pandemic lockdown and the concurrent 33.Bimu, the machine tools exhibition that generated a significant visitor flow towards Xylexpo.
Xylexpo’s accelerators are the above-mentioned “Industry 5.0” topic, which has strengthened the exhibitors’ determination to seize this opportunity to show the best of their technology, presenting the most up-to-date technology review under the light of a regulation that will give fiscal benefits up to 45 percent of the investment value. Definitely, a strong reason that will drive many business owners to consider the possibility of renovating their fleet of equipment.
If we look at the exhibiting companies, the figures are basically the same, with a slight decrease by few percent points compared to October 2022: in halls 1 and 3 of FieraMilano-Rho – closer to the East Gate and the public transport network – you will find 273 exhibitors, 33 percent from abroad, on a total surface of 25,300 square meters, a result that reaffirms the overall trend of companies we had already seen in 2022 and in all recent industry editions, namely the reduction of booth areas.
International attendance is significant, confirming the quality (not only in economic terms) of the Italian market (worth more than one billion euro) on one side, while showing on the other a new ranking of the most important and “active” countries among industry technology manufacturers, with China and Turkey at the top. Such trends have supported different decisions concerning the side program, suggesting a stronger “focus” on sales activities, knowledge transfer and in-depth technical initiatives.
