ORGANISERS of Packaging Innovations and Luxury Packaging London hailed this year’s show as the “most successful edition to date” and announced that 75% of this year’s exhibitors have rebooked for next year.
Over 4,300 visitors attended the two-day event, which featured 180 exhibitors and more than 18 hours of educational content.
The likes of Unilever, Bulgari, Innocent, ASDA, Superdrug, The Body Shop, Chanel, Heineken, Harrods, Dyson and Mars were in attendance, along with entrepreneurs Peter Jones from Dragon’s Den and Made in Chelsea’s Francis Boulle.
James Drake-Brockman, divisional director of Easyfairs’ packaging portfolio said, “What a show! Not only did we welcome more visitors and host more suppliers than ever before, but we also successfully introduced our revamped conference format and launched our brand-new partnership with The Pentawards. Visitors clearly recognised that this was the perfect platform to see the latest trends and newest technologies before everyone else, and so came in force.”
The Pentawards Conference brought together experts from the packaging design sector while the Pentawards Exhibit showcased a selection of the 2017 Pentawards Finalists, including Hennessy, Stark Paris, Fratelli Spirini Gordost, Pizza Express, Tanqueray, Fortnum & Mason and Fjallraven Packground.
Four new forums dedicated to the key packaging markets of beauty, food, drink and luxury examined the latest challenges and opportunities for those industries.
Sonhia Mai, packaging compliance at Marks & Spencer said, “The show feels even bigger and better organised than last year. The level of show content and expertise from the speakers has been really impressive.” Sophie Taylor, skincare packaging technologist from The Body Shop added, “We have been to some fantastic seminars and it is great to see the variety of opinions and speakers on show.”
The Innovation Showcase pitted products from the show against each other, with visitors voting for their favourite. The bamboo-plastic composite multi-functional wine packaging box display rack from Dongguan Mingfeng Packaging was crowned the most innovative packaging.
David Holt, sales director at first-time exhibitors Item Products said, “This is our first time at the show and we were so impressed with it that we rebooked for 2018 before day one had even finished.”
Another exhibitor, Paul Batey, director at Showcase Creative added, “The show has been amazing. It is our first time at Packaging Innovations London, and our stand has been busier than we could have imagined. On the first day alone we had over 80 business leads and people queueing up to see us.”
