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opti defied all expectations and grew to 6 halls this year. With Opti as the first of the major exhibitions of the year, it seems to have created a good mood for 2019 for everyone in the optical industry i.e. exhibitors, organisers as well as visitors.
For all those who’ve been visiting international expositions and wondering if expositions are becoming redundant because of the shrinking size or reduced footfall, think again! opti 2019 (25th to 27th January at Fairground Munich, Germany) brought in a good amount of optimism to the new year and this was evident in the smiling faces of the exhibitors and the visitors.
The Event
Virtually all visitors started with a short inspection of the hall layouts. With opti now growing to six halls, opti fans first had to grow accustomed to the changes to the familiar layout and look of opti before setting off to their favourite parts of the exhibition. “The professional visitors quickly and adequately adjusted to the new hall structure with three entrances. They praised the clear hall profiles”, explains Dieter Dohr, Chairman of the GHM Gesellschaft für Handwerksmessen mbH. “opti earned top scores with nine out of ten visitors and seven out of ten exhibitors when surveyed by an independent opinion research institute. However, regardless of these very high approval ratings, we will also this year continue to follow the recipe for success we’ve been pursuing since 2008: After the trade show, we will comprehensively analyse this year’s edition to continuously improve opti!”
More About The Event
In addition to the classic “search for innovation”, the interest of visitors increasingly focused on the desire to “initiate new business relationships” and on “continued training and education”. opti managed to even better meet these demands by compactly bundling all “knowledge islands” with diverse offers in Hall C4, instead of spreading these out over the individual halls as before. Directly adjacent, visitors could explore the opti areas Job Market and Campus, the Forum, and the SHOWCASE revolving around the key topic of the “Customer Journey”.
The four stations “Strategy”, “Need”, “Buy”, and “Use” clearly illustrated the diverse elements opticians need to consider when designing their customer approaches. Guided tours offered visitors concrete tips which they can quickly implement for their own business using best-practice examples. This will continue after the trade show as well. “We’ve also created a digital knowledge area surrounding the “Customer Journey”, which is available at www.opti- showcase.de /en over the next 365 days. With it, opti takes an important step into becoming a 24/7 knowledge database for opticians!”, clarifies Dieter Dohr.
Directly besides the SHOWCASE, curious visitors could quench their thirst for knowledge with exciting lectures and panel discussion at the opti FORUM. Nine out of ten visitors visited at least one of the 34 lectures. It’s not altogether surprising that the most popular lectures revolved around exploring the best customer approach, with lectures such as “Where does which customer buy their pair of glasses now and in the future?”, “Using events to reach customers who are ready to buy”, and the opti trend talk “Greater visibility through social media?”, organised together with two top influencers. Another highlight at the Forum was the award for BLOGGER SPECTACLE Award 2019 to the Best Newcomer in the opti BOXES. The opti freshman Rounder Rounder from Hong Kong was awarded with the prize by fashion, lifestyle, and eyewear bloggers from all over Europe.
The next opti takes place from 10 to 12 January 2020 in Munich.
Keep watching this space as we get you the reactions of visitors and exhibitors for opti 2019.
