Surveys, program evaluations, and interviews with past attendees have all shown that converting professionals come to ICE USA, the international converting exhibition, for two reasons – to learn about new technologies and hands-on experience. One company that has been successfully maximizing on the opportunity to demonstrate equipment to prospective customers at ICE is New Era Converting Machinery, Paterson, New Jersey. New Era offers engineering and fabrication of custom coating, laminating and embossing systems for the web converting industry and has been a long-time exhibitor at the show. ICE USA 2017 coming up in Orlando, FL, April 25-27, 2017.

“We have been at every ICE USA show since its inception in 2011,” says Bob Pasquale, President of New Era. “Our corporate philosophy is that bringing machinery to this show is extremely important. In this day and age, customers can sit in their office and surf the internet and see plenty of pictures or read info on your company and your competitors. The people who come to the show want to see and touch machinery. They are technical people who understand the technical aspects of the machines. Photos on a website don’t give an indication of the full capabilities and techniques the machine offers. Hardware at the show is what people really want to see.”

When asked if bringing large equipment to the converting industry exhibition is a good investment, Pasquale said, “We have had tremendous success in meeting new customers at the show and in fact if you go back through every single show we can attribute at least one major sale to people we have met at ICE USA. That one sale gives us the return we need for the marketing investment.”

Melissa Magestro, Executive Vice President of Mack Brooks Exhibitions, Inc. said “One of our main goals is to help our exhibitors get the most out of exhibiting and meet their marketing objectives. If they are successful, we are successful. The number one best practice we have heard from our exhibitors that we share with new exhibitors is bringing equipment to the show really helps a company stand out and generate more leads.”

ICE USA, offered biennially, has been growing steadily year after year, with over 300 converting industry exhibitors and 3,000 attendees at the show in 2015. ICE USA is the only dedicated event for the conversion of paper, film, foil, nonwovens and other flexible web-based materials in the Americas and the 2017 event will mark the fourth edition of ICE USA.

Asked if New Era is planning to do anything new next year at ICE USA, Pasquale answered, “Yes, we plan on bringing an entire coating line to the show. Our typical practice has been to bring machinery sections. This is the first time we will bring a fully integrated coating line to the show. Visitors can see the entire processing line assembled in its operating state and speak with our technical staff on how it all works.”

He adds, “Our hope is that everyone would bring machinery. With each edition of ICE USA, we see more exhibitors bringing equipment and that is good for all of us – attendees have more opportunity to compare and see what’s new, the show floor is more exciting, and exhibitors get to see more attendees.”