One of the major industry conventions for electronic packaging and assembling was held at Tokyo Big Sight, Japan for three days beginning January 28. The show changed its name this year, and is now called NEPCON World Japan.
For the most part, every year, the convention has grown larger and larger and continuously adds new events each year.
The huge floors of the east and west halls are typically fully-occupied with more than 1200 exhibitors.
INTERNEPCON Japan is still the largest part of this huge exhibition, but occupies only one-third of the space. The remaining two-thirds of floor space is reserved by Electro Test Japan, Laser & Optics, Printed Circuit Expo, Semiconductor Packaging Technology and Car Electronics Technologies. This year, more than 160 companies representing electronics automotive-related devices were featured in a newly launched show at NEPCON World Japan.
Crisis hits NEPCON
However, even before the doors opened, most of us were speculating on the number of visitors the show will attract during this economic slowdown.
Unfortunately, the pessimistic views came to fruition.
The crowd size that formed at the registration lines on day one was similar to previous years but, the lines dwindled within 30 minutes, and the staff covering the registration counters was not very busy.
I estimate the number of visitors during the first day was less than one-half compared to previous years.
Once inside, visitors navigated from booth to booth without fighting crowds.
On the second and third days, the crowds were much better than the first day, but, there is no question that NEPCON World Japan had fewer visitors than previous years because of the market recession.
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Another sign of a worldwide recession was the fewer number of foreign visitors, especially from Korea, Taiwan and China.
In previous years, you could hear a lot of Korean and Chinese conversations spoken from tour groups originating from these countries.
It was very quiet this year.
Some blamed the poor attendance on the lunar New Year holidays celebrated during the same week as the show; however, this is not a good explanation.
The Korean and Taiwanese business men are savvy and ambitious, and would not let a holiday get in the way of hustling some business during the show.
Previous years, these businessmen would visit Japan for business and celebrate the holiday season while in Japan.
The real reason crowds were small this year was that most companies in these countries prohibited all overseas trips because of the global downturn in business.
Plenty of seating
During a tour of the exhibition, one could observe many resting and meeting areas between booths.
I counted more than 50 of these spaces. I could not remember seeing them last year, and thought it odd that this prime display space was not being used appropriately. Then, I realized these empty spaces were cancellations from companies that had reserved their booths last year but, now faced serious financial difficulties resulting in cancelled reservations and forfeited down payments.
It could be seen that several companies did not cancel their reservations, but instead, failed to send any corporate display materials and / or personnel to work their designated booth locations. There were only name tags at these locations.
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