The 11th International Lift Exhibition ASANSÖR held from April 9th – 12th 2009 in Istanbul sported the upbeat slogan “Success for all!”. Istanbul lies in the western part of Turkey and hugs the two sides of the Bosporus Straits. A bay in the Bosporus Straights known as the Golden Horn to the West of the city separates the European section occupying the southern peninsular between the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn with its historic city centre from the urban districts to the north which adjoin the historical Galata district. Istanbul is expanding way beyond its historic city centre both to the north and east. To the southeast are the Princes’ Islands, which also belong to the greater urban district of Istanbul.
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Once again, the exhibition was held at the Tuyap International Fair Convention and Congress Center. The fair grounds encompass 10 halls with a total covered area of 22,000 square metres. The Exhibition was staged by the Turkish trade fair organizers IFO-Istanbul in cooperation with AYSAD (Turkish Elevator and Escalator Industrialists Association). The Industrial Designers’ Society of Turkey (ETMK) was also involved in an advisory capacity with the design competition.
The official opening ceremony was attended by special guests Michel Chartron - President of the European Lift Association, Louis Bialy – Member of the American National Standards Institute, Ren Tianxiao – President of the Chinese Lift Association, Giovanni Ferrarini – President of the EFESME, Nurettin Ozdebir – CEO of the Chamber of Commerce in Ankara, Sefa Targit – President of the Turkish Elevator and Escalator Industrialists Association AYSAD and Selahattin Durak – CEO of the Istanbul Fair Organization IFO. Once again this year, the opening addresses were delivered by Selahattin Durak and Sefa Targit.
Bucking the general economic downturn, once again this year the show exceeded all expectations. Exhibitor and visitor numbers were up compared to two years ago. Back in 2007, the event was held in just three halls, this year the number had grown to four. The only drawback to this year’s event was its timing: The decision to hold the show over the Easter holiday weekend discouraged a good number of European visitors from attending.
There were 285 exhibitors taking part from 69 different countries.
A head count on the four days of the exhibition revealed a total of 22,892 visitors. Of the visitors, 18,844 were Turkish and 4,138 from other countries. A quarter of them returned on more than one day, pushing the number of day attendances up to almost 30,000 and resulting in a 7 % increase in the number of visitors overall compared to 2007.
ASANSÖR Istanbul ‘09 created a joint platform bringing together component manufacturers with resellers and resellers with end users.
The conference program featuring international speakers
The theme of the first day of the conference staged alongside the exhibition was “Beginning of a new era – global approach to standards”. Speakers included Louis Bialy , who talked on bilateral validation between European and North American standards and Ren Tianxiao, on relations between the China Standards Institute and ISO & CEN.
On the morning of the second day, Massimo Bezzi from the EFESME (European Federation for Elevator Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) talked on the European lift market and Italian excellence. The first topic of the afternoon was “Energy efficiency of vertical and horizontal transportation in buildings” a talk delivered by ELA Chairman Michel Chartron. Next on the agenda was a talk on the development of the lift and new machinery directives by Beata Pich of the European Commission D.G. Enterprise and Henk van Eeden of the Netherlands Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment.
The third morning of the conference was given over to the working and dimension principles of synchronous motors. Speakers were Rifat Demiröz of the company Akar Lift and Tarik Duru from the Kocaeli University Electrical Engineering Division.
The last part of the conference dealt with “Progress in the national lift sector: Technology, Competition, Trade”. Speakers included Mesut Gülcüler and Niyazi Özgür from the Turkish Ministry of Industry and Trade and Ali Osman Özdilek, legal advisor to AYSAD.
Design meets technology
The exhibition played host to the ILDC – International Lift Design Contest – for the third time this year. The concept behind the contest is to encourage young engineers and architects to consider new solutions in the field of lift technology. The theme of this year’s Lift Design Contest was “Light and Illumination in Lifts”. The aim was to find innovative ways of creating and depicting a link between lift users and the lighting systems used in lifts.
Esra Keskin and Fatih Senay were awarded a prize of € 5,000 for their joint project. The second and third runners-up Emre Caglar and Korhan Büyükdemirci received prize money of € 3,000 and € 1,000 respectively.
The company Kone also awarded a special prize to Hakan Evkaya in the form of a trip to Finland to visit the Kone plant.
The evening program
The fair organizers IFO also offered a varied ancillary program of events outside of the fair itself.
A cocktail reception staged on the Thursday evening afforded the ideal opportunity to forge initial business contacts in a relaxed social atmosphere.
On the Friday evening, conference participants, members of the press and a number of customers were invited to attend a boat trip and dinner on the Bosporus.
Once again, the ASANSÖR proved to be an all-round resounding success. The next fair is due to be held from April 7 – 10, 2011.
