MACEF PRESS RELEASE The NEW MACEF proves successful at the new fairgrounds. 3,459 exhibitors / 86,271 visitors / 167,000 sq. m

After working hard and passionately for almost nine months on the project (“with the heart and the mind,” as Aldo Colonetti would say), the New Macef had great expectations about its outcome. What happened in Milan on January 20 to 23 was perhaps beyond such expectations: visitors (86,271, +15.17%, at a quite unfavourable time for exhibiting activities) awarded Macef through their number and, particularly, their top quality, and included many large-scale distribution buyers, specialized-store owners, designers, architects, and journalists from all over the world (1,620 were accredited at the Press Room, vs. 786 last year).

Many visitors came from abroad (12,601, or 14% of the total and 4.59% up from the past edition), mainly from Europe, but also from the US, Latin American, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Mediterranean basin. Italian visitors also totalled a significant number (73,670, +17.19%), taking full command of their most traditional household items’ show.

Festivity – the exhibition of Christmas decorations, games, toys, carnival, and party decorations – performed very well too. It took place in synergy and partly overlapped to Macef (on January 18-22, in halls 16 and 20, with 183 exhibiting companies on a 16,421 sq. m. net exhibiting surface, significantly larger compared to last year).

Thus the project for the New Macef covered more than 167thousand net sq. m. globally. The extent of the covered surface was a sort of début for the Milan fairground, operating for the first time in full.

The 3,459 exhibitors declared themselves highly satisfied about finally being able to work in a top-quality context. Some obvious troubles (the underperforming underground service, especially on Sunday, traffic circulation around the fairground, still to be organized) are due to the adjustment of the new fair, and should therefore no longer occur in the next editions. “It is important to note that the exhibitors’ support to the project for the new Macef had, among others, the greatest impact on the excellent results achieved,” says Paolo Taverna, general manager of Fiera Milano International. “The quality of the show was clearly visible in all the halls and in all the exhibiting sectors. Never before did the organizers and the exhibitors work in synergy; never before did Macef boast so many beautiful and carefully designed stands, with so many new products especially conceived for the event. This is a valuable exhibiting project that can only be further improved.”

“My feeling is that Macef January 2006 was the starting point of a new life of the show, rather than a final destination, right in the year of its 80th anniversary,” says Marisa Corso, exhibition director of the show, in turn. “The new concept of Macef, now a definitely unique and original service show, was noticed, understood and shared. Apparently, we worked effectively and communicated effectively, and set up an efficient organization. The availability of a unique setting like the new fieramilano certainly helped as well.”

It was the Macef of the great service events, as appeared from the first-impact exhibiting layout: the two halls of Dettagli, a great and spectacular gate to the new Macef and at the same time a selection of high-end products dedicated to large-scale distribution buyers.
The six spectacular Shops were also widely attended and highly “significant”: places for product selection and contaminations, available to the public and supported by the unique book called “Pop Ideas,” everything based on the Living trends studied by the Future Concept Lab of Francesco Morace for Macef.

Other events were much appreciated and laid the foundations for a longer and more structural relation between Macef and the industry to which the show makes reference.
These include Six stories in search of an author, i.e. the twinship between six Italian manufacturing districts and as many young designers, which resulted into ideas and products already in production; the show Design Inn, combined with the Massimo Martini Design Award, with three competing international design schools (Paris, Zurich, and Tallinn); the space dedicated to the Host Country with Wakamaru, the multi-task home robot as the guest star; the space Materie, supervised by Enrico Tonucci inside a spectacular greenhouse, where innovative designers and companies blossomed; the area Getti & Oggetti for the sector of bathroom accessories. And then two important and widely attended conferences on the relation between Italy and Japan and on the peculiarities and perspectives of Italian design.

“The huge success of Macef allows to draw some important conclusions,” said Franco Milone, president and managing director of Fiera Milano International, organizing the show. “The first obviously concerns the exhibition, which had been fully revised and turned into a great media event and, at the same time, a factor at the service of operators, to whom information, cues, and suggestions are offered to improve their professional performance. The second conclusion,” continued Milone, “refers to Milan and its fair. It is now clear that the new facility, supported by the efforts of all the organizers, will provide support and perspectives for the development of the economy, perhaps even beyond all expectations.”

During the final day Macef was visited by a number of outstanding international governmental delegations, also thanks to the combination with the international meeting of Ice taking place at fieramilano. Visitors included Umberto Vattani, newly-appointed president of Ice, who spent a long time touring through the halls and stopped at a few stands.

Macef is now looking ahead, at the next Macef January 2007 (with Spain as the host country, represented by Agata Ruiz de la Prada), as well as at Macef September, which will take place from the 8th to the 11th, also at the new fieramilano.

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