Growth of LOPE-C 2010 Mirrors Expanding Opportunities for PE

As the Large-area, Organic and Printed Electronics Convention (LOPE-C) concludes its three-day conference and exhibition today at Messe Frankfurt, the Organic Electronics Association (OE-A), the conference’s organizers are understandably pleased with the event. The OE-A, part of the VDMA (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau - German Engineering Federation), was founded in 2004 with 35 member companies, and has grown to more than 140 members, and LOPE-C 2010, its second annual conference, enjoyed excellent growth in terms of speakers, exhibitors and most notably, attendees.

While next week will feature a more in-depth review of LOPE-C 2010, a quick look at the show’s growth is in order. According to OE-A’s numbers, attendance for LOPE-C 2010 was more than 800, 33 percent growth over the 600 attendees who came to Frankfurt for LOPE-C 2009. Slightly more than half of the attendees came from overseas.

The number of exhibitors also rose dramatically, from 50 in 2009 to 89 for LOPE-C 2010, a 78 percent jump. As a global, show, LOPE-C drew exhibitors from 13 countr