After a three-year hiatus, the International Industry Fair has returned to the Celje Showground and treated the visitors with a diverse range of exhibited devices, machines, appliances, robots, tools and applications from the world of industry. In addition to the abundant exhibition programme, visitors were given the opportunity to attend professional lectures where different branches of industry were presented. Throughout the four days of the fair, various interesting side events took place, including the National Welding Competition on Wednesday, which brought us new national champions, and a performance of the Dunking Devils acrobatic team, who warmed up the large crowd of visitors on Thursday.

The last day of the fair proved that the International Industry Fair exceeded everyone’s expectations yet again. The fair’s visitors took advantage of this year’s last chance to view the novelties of global industry that were brought by this year’s exhibitors. The side events programme was very diverse – it included a number of lectures about the industry of plastic. Friday was dedicated to four topics under the slogan “Plastic is not a problem – it’s a solution!” Various speakers of the day touched upon topics such as EU’s strategy on plastics, and on thermoplastic, composite and elastomer materials and technologies.

This year’s fair was a success also from the viewpoint of Celjski sejem. In terms of the number of visitors and exhibitors, it was comparable to the fairs from previous years. The company is already looking forward to organising future International Industry Fairs. Katja Goršek, Head of the project, said, “As organiser of the fair, we talk to our exhibitors every day to collect their feedback, and it is mostly very positive. Everyone is pleased that fairs are back and that they can address their guests and visitors in person. We are already discussing the coming editions of the fair. We know that there is always room for improvement, so we follow these comments and observations, we take them into account and do our best to do even better next time.”

During the final day of the fair, we walked among our exhibitors to find out what their experience of this year’s International Industry Fair was. Their thoughts were as follows:

»Generally speaking, it’s good. There are plenty of visitors. It’s obvious that there have been no similar activities for quite a while due to covid. We are glad to be here at the fair,” said Franci Jelenc from KMS d.o.o.

Nejc Končan from Varikon d.o.o. shared a positive opinion, as well. “The fair was immensely interesting for us. It’s our first time here, or, rather, my first time organising all this, and I must say that those who came to the fair knew exactly why they came and what they came for. I’m very pleased with this fair.”

Matjaž Vnuk of Daihen Varstroj said, “The fair has been simply phenomenal, far above our expectations, very well-organised.”

“The chemistry between visitors and exhibitors is outstanding. It looks like they really missed this authentic contact. We’re very happy,” he added.