That’s how Jim Pittas, Vice President, Trade Shows for PMMI, announced the news that the well known and recently retired late-night comedian would be at Pack Expo International as part of the Pack Expo Lecture Series. The show runs November 2-5 in Chicago, and Leno is on tap for November 3 at 5:30.
The Leno announcement was one of several that were made March 18 at the annual late-winter Pack Expo press briefing held by PMMI in Chicago. Pittas said he expects Pack Expo International to attract 2,000 exhibitors in 1.1 million square foot of space. He attributes the show’s popularity and success to the customer-centric approach that PMMI has taken to the event in the recent past. What this amounts to is figuring out how to meet the different requirements of 20 or so vertical industries that attend the show. Pittas also noted that recent PMMI shows held in Las Vegas, Mexico City, and Guadalajara were also record-setters.
New at Pack Expo International this year will be the co-located Pharma Expo, produced jointly by PMMI and the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE). Pittas called the addition of this event to Pack Expo as one of the most exciting developments in recent PMMI history. Pharma Expo will occupy the West Hall, and Pittas reported that exhibit space is 85% sold out already with 8 months or so left before the show.
In her remarks at the press briefing, ISPE President and CEO Nancy Berg noted that the pharmaceutical industry is showing remarkable growth. But she also observed that it is a complex business where lots of regulatory oversight only makes it more complex. In such a business environment, she said, partnering with an exhibition powerhouse like PMMI is a good way to expose pharma stakeholders to best- in-class theories, machinery, and materials that will help lead to operational efficiencies.
Among the challenges pharma faces, said Berg, none is more vexing than counterfeiting, and close behind it would be errors in drug dosage. To find solutions to such challenges, the pharma industry needs to become less insular and inward-looking. It needs to seek best practices from other industries. There are few better ways to do that than by partnering with PMMI for some cross-industry collaboration, said Berg.
More news for Pack Expo International: The Active and Intelligent Packaging Industry Association (AIPIA) will hold its third World Congress alongside Pack Expo International 2014. Located in the West Hall along with Pharma Expo, the AIPIA World Congress will include a display area in addition to 12 parallel conference sessions touching on such topics as brand protection, anti-counterfeiting, mobile marketing, printed electronics, shelf life extension, and food waste.
Another new development announced by Pittas is that PMMI’s newest show, Pack Expo East, has been rescheduled from February 2-4 to February 16-18 so that more floor space will be available. The show will be at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Added Pittas, "The East Coast has always been underrepresented at Pack Expo International and at Pack Expo Las Vegas. We are launching Pack Expo East to address this."
On the international front, PMMI has announced a new partnership wherein Ipack-Ima, will be the exclusive representative in Italy for the Pack Expo trade shows. Also, PMMI now owns a part of Ipack-Ima’s East Afripak 2014, a show that debuts September 9-14 in Kenya.
