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Exhibitions and conferences
Keywords Conferences, Electronics industry
Enthusiasts clad in wet suits and mounted on boards para-surfed across the choppy surface of the English Channel in the warm May sunshine. Inside the calmer atmosphere of the Metropole Hotel enthusiasts in a different form of surface mounting, dressed for the most part in very smart (and dry) suits, gathered for the 2004 Nepcon Exhibition and Conference.
Being back in Brighton again was evocative of those far-off days when there was an Internepcon show, usually held in October with a good gale blowing off the sea, when people talked excitedly about "electro-plating through holes which had been drilled with CNC machines to give two-sided interconnect". One recalls people standing on the furniture to get a glimpse of some green solder resist which could be "photo-imaged", and which would allow "surface mounted components" to be used. On the next stand you could buy all you needed to furnish an air-traffic control tower, and in what was then the ballroom, there were lots of glass cabinets full of components and connectors, emulating the visual appeal of a sweetie shop window.
But they don't stand on the furniture anymore. The industry is mature now, and much changed, as is the Metropole. No shortage of exhibitors, though, more than last year and as eclectic a mix as one would imagine. The Brighton "spirit" lingers on; Brighton still beats Birmingham handsdown when it comes to choices of interesting, if not rather risqué, venues for the evening, and Reed Exhibitions sensibly made the right choice in electing to stay beside the seaside. Nice to detect as well restored confidence in the industry after the recent dire days.
It may have been coincidental, but on the first day nearly all the companies that attracted attention were British, and they all had something original and innovative, to show (Plate 1).
Only this month DAGE Precision Industries won the 2004 Queen's Award for Innovation, and the sense of pride in this achievement was palpable on the stand. Their XiDAT XD6600 was on display on the stand, as well as in the briskly busy SMART Group Lead-Free Hands-On Workshops being run on both days. The new X-ray equipment, with incredibly sharp image resolution thanks to their...