How are the preparations for VISION 2024 currently going?
Florian Niethammer: Preparations for the upcoming VISION show are in full swing and we are very far along in the planning process already. I’m happy to announce that we have surpassed the number of exhibitors of 2022 and can count more than 450 exhibiting companies today. We are on a pleasing development path with VISION despite the challenging conditions that many markets Iare facing at the moment. And the nice thing is that we are receiving more enquiries and expressions of interest still. We expect a total growth in exhibitors of more than 20% until October compared to the last edition. This definitely reflects the positive expectations and development opportunities in the industry. We see that despite consolidation and M&A activities in the market, the imaging and machine vision market is still a very attractive field for many new companies to enter. Thus, we count a share about 1/3 of new companies that exhibit at VISION for the very first time. Also we have already been able to increase the amount of occupied space by more than 1,000 net m². This means that we are talking about an increase of 15% in rented space at present which we are still able to accommodate in both Halls 8 and 10 with an optimized hall planning. You can really see VISION´s international relevance in the following numbers: The exhibiting companies travel to Stuttgart from 36 countries and even more impressive: more than two thirds of all exhibitors come from abroad (67%).
What will be new on the VISION this year?
FN: We are happy to continue the success story of our Guided Tours which we organize together with the machine vision experts from Vision Markets. With these tours we will offer an attractive benefit for end users and machine builders from specific vertical markets, not only by bringing them in contact with relevant exhibitors, but also by offering them a machine vision crash course on site. The selected industries will be some of the strongest growing markets for vision technology which are logistics, food & beverage and electronics & semiconductor. Moreover, there are many already well-known highlights as part of our VISION accompanying program. We will again offer the largest presentation forum for machine vision in the world, the Industrial VISION Days, which will be organized in cooperation with VDMA Machine Vision. This means 70 presentation slots during three days. The focus will be on the latest trends and product developments including start-up pitches, panel discussions and the VISION Award ceremony. The 26th edition of the coveted VISION Award will honor the best innovation in imaging and machine vision. The short listed companies will have the chance to present their new ideas at VISION and the winning company will be announced and be presented with the prize on site. In addition, we now also offer the Scientific VISION Days on a second stage, in cooperation with AIT (Austrian Institute of Technology). Here, research institutes and universities will present their latest R&D topics.