PLMA Amsterdam or PLMA Chicago - which is a better trade show?
That is the question I heard from many folks I met over the last couple of days in Amsterdam. I suppose the answer largely depends on your purpose for being at the show in the first place. If you’re an exhibitor looking for customers in North America, PLMA Amsterdam won’t help you with that. Conversly, you’ll be hard pressed to find European sales channels by exhibiting in Chicago. If you represent a sales channel or a brand and are looking to find a producer of a particular product, I must say that PLMA Amsterdam is a better choice. The show is larger, many categories are better presented in terms of variety, capabilities, capacity and so on.
What’s also noteworthy is that exhibitors from the US and Canada are virtually non existent at PLMA Amsterdam. Perhaps Europe offers more cost-effective producers and manufacturing in North America is simply too costly. Maybe producers in the US and Canada are mainly focused on manufacturing their own brands. Or, could it be that the US economy is still posting growth in consumer spending month after month and the industry is too busy meeting the demands of the domestic market… whatever the case I think it’s an interesting dynamic that European presence in Chicago is prevalent every year while US is largely absent in Amsterdam from both exhibitor and attendee sides.
