Tapping into the power of the Eastern market

More than 14ꯠ attendees are expected to converge on Philadelphia's Convention Center, May 19 to 21, for EastPack '98, sponsored by the Institute of Packaging Professionals, (Herndon, VA), and managed by Reed Exhibition Cos. (Norwalk, CT). The growth experienced at EastPack '96 is expected to continue this year. Two years ago, attendance jumped 40% above '94, with exhibit space up 36%. One reason is the very successful and growing Creative Packaging Show, a 60ꯠ sq' exhibit in its own separate hall this year. This show focuses on innovations in materials, closures and containers and other package components. The growth of EastPack reflects the size of the packaging market in the Eastern region. This area is estimated by Reed to provide 20% ($19.4 billion) of the U.S. total packaging market of $93 billion. And, says a Reed survey, over half of the attendees in '96 said they don't attend any other packaging show. Along with the Creative Packaging Show, AIM U.S.A. will sponsor the Scan-Tech Pavilion that will display up-to-date technology in automatic identification and data collection. The Convention Center will host the series of conferences and seminars planned by IoPP. A two-day tutorial on Fundamentals of packaging line design is planned for Tuesday and Wednesday, May 19-20, from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. each day. This conference will be moderated by Howard Leary of Luciano Packaging Technologies. Also on May 19, a panel discussion on Specifying materials for the new millenium will be chaired by David Luttenberger, Packaging Technology and Engineering, from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. From 9 a.m. till noon that day an unidentified panel will address the topic of How contract packagers can improve operations and profitability. Concurrently, Paul Zepf and Eric Rumi of Zarpack will present ideas for Improving packaging line performance. On Tuesday afternoon, journalist Greg Erickson will moderate a session on Modern design techniques from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. Following is an alphabetical list of exhibitors and booth numbers, as of March 2.