WHAT'S NEW AT THE NEC?
Page 32
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Having read the SMMT preview of the "exciting new products" which were to be exhibited at the NEC, I decided to scrap my travel and hotel arrangements and roman at home to watch the grass grow.
How operators and engineers can justify the time and expense to make the trip to Birmingham is beyond me. Of course, they do not have the advantage of seeing the list of "exciting new products" before they travel.
For example, how can they afford to miss "a simple mechanism for safely loading and removing ladders from LCV roofs? There is also a new 'revolutionary vehicle-cleaning lance" on display. Another company will be unveiling its new corporate image and business objectives for 2000.
What about some light reading for that weary trip home? Weil, there is a "new edition 10 catalogue" making its debut at NEC. As visitors drag with leaden feet their way to the exits, how can they afford to miss visiting a first-time exhibitor with apparently nothing to exhibit but who is celebrating its 20th birthday with celebration cake and wine for guests (the paying variety, of course)?
Surely it's time that the industry got together and charged into the new century by scrapping this out-dated exhibition and devoting time and energy to mounting an annual conference where the papers and the discussion had some relevance to today's needs.
Think what a crowd puller and what media coverage such an event would attract with names like Brown, Byers, Prescott, MacDonald, Straw and their opposite numbers across the floor, facing the sharp end of the haulage business overtwo full days with no "jolly boys" dinners to distract them.
It will be interesting to learn from the visitors, not the organisers, how successful the NEC jamboree was.
lain SherrIff,
Bexley, Kent
• All I can say is, take a look at Our show report, starting on page 12—Technical Editor.