Summary
• Xylexpo has 550 exhibitors, Technodomus 300.
• Xylexpo runs alongside the Sasmil furniture components show.
• Technodomus immediately follows the Milan furniture fair.
• Weinig and Homag back Xylexpo, Biesse and SCM Technodomus.

You wait 13 months for an international woodworking machinery and timber industry exhibition in Italy and two come along at once.

The Technodomus show in Rimini and Xylexpo in Milan don’t actually coincide, but they are near enough. The former runs from April 20-24, the latter from May 4-8.

Biennial Xylexpo, which runs in conjunction with the Sasmil furniture accessories and components show at the Rho fair ground, is, of course, the established event. In fact, this year’s show is the 22nd. It’s also the bigger of the two, second only in the European timber industry exhibition league table to Hannover’s Ligna. Its 550 exhibitors this year (compared to 850 two years ago) add up to 41,000m2 of stand space and cover the gamut, including semi-finished timber components, furniture supplies, raw materials, hardware and a range of other wood-based products as well as timber processing machinery and associated technology.

They don’t seem to be making visitor projections this time around, but in 2008 the Xylexpo organiser, Italian machine industry association ACIMALL, posted attendance of 82,000, with 52% from outside Italy.

Technodomus launched last year, evolving from Rimini’s Domuslegno, an exhibition focused principally on timber in construction. This pedigree means that it also extends beyond timber technology, in its case to include roofing, windows, glazing, staircases, decorative wood products and timber-based building.

Technodomus exhibitors double

The inaugural show attracted 140 exhibitors and took up 25,000m² of the Rimini Expo Centre. This year it has grown to 300 stands which will cover 42,000m³. It is also expecting to at least equal its 2009 visitor total of 18,156, 28% of whom were from abroad.

Giving the event added appeal this year, say organsiers Rimini Fiera, is the fact that it’s been pushed forward a month so that it immediately follows the Milan International Furniture Fair. “This means more furniture manufacturers and designers will be able to visit Technodomus,” they said. “And we’re running a shuttle bus for them between Milan and Rimini.”

Each of the exhibitions has its blue chip supporters, with Technodomus’s big names including Biesse, SCM and Cefla, which between them claim 50% of Italian wood machinery production. They backed the event last year and decided to stick with it, “for cost-efficiency reasons”.

Biesse chairman Roberto Selci said Technodomus was well-timed and in tune with the “market slowdown ” and SCM managing director Alfredo Aureli that it suited an industry “penalised by the economic crisis”.

SCM UK’s Mike King added that attendance at the last Technodomus “was above our expectations”.

“This time we’re also hoping we see the start of an upturn at the show and more international visitors,” he said, adding that SCM was taking UK customers to Rimini from “small, medium and large companies”.

The initial reaction from Xylexpo to the news that Technodomus was running just 10 days before was outspoken. Acimall described the timing as “absurd” and its president Ambrogio Delachi said that “in difficult times it is not in the interests of the ‘made in Italy’ concept”.

Weinig and Homag

Among Xylexpo’s prominent supporters are Weinig and Homag, whose marketing director Jürgen Koppel said that his company’s continuing support for the Milan event “ was not up for discussion”.

Acimall’s Mr Delachi also said that Xylexpo would “defend its leadership by all means necessary”. Since then, however, the tone has been less abrasive. The organisers acknowledged early on that their show will be smaller than in 2008, but put this down to the global downturn rather than competition from Technodomus, and their primary focus has switched more to what their event has to offer the visitor.

Both shows flag up their added attractions. At Xylexpo these include a section called “Woods at the exhibition” focused on sustainable forest management and other environmental topics. Technodomus highlights its seminars and workshops, covering such topics as training in CNC machining, timber building and CE marking.

Both events and their exhibitors also promise product launches aplenty. At Technodomus, for instance, Biesse is unveiling “innovative hi-tech solutions” for timber, panel and joinery processing. A special focus will be automated window and door technology including the new Rover B WMS, an entry-level machining centre which can run unsupervised for 30 minutes.

SCM’s 10,000m² stand features over 80 machines, including the new Dogma CNC machining centre for windows and doors, plus panel, classical and solid wood technology.

Innovation at Xylexpo

Headliners at Xylexpo, which includes a “High-tech Arena” to showcase launches, range from Paul’s Rapid optimising CNC cross-cut system, which features two independent blades “to achieve maximum yield”, through Giben’s Prisma 3000 SPT panel saw, to Elcon’s Advance Quadra, billed as “the world’s first vertical automatic beam saw”. Weinig highlights its workpiece-oriented Easycom machine software and Eco Start-Stop system for extending motor life and cutting energy costs, while Homag’s Holzma division launches the HKL 380 routing and cutting CombiLine and a cutting pattern-free production list module for its CADmatic 4 software.

Whether both shows will continue to be able to boast this level of innovation into the future, one emerges as the machine makers’ preferred shop window, or the two come to some ‘understanding’, remains to be seen. In the meantime, for visitors it’s a question of browsing the respective websites (www.xylexpo.com and www.technodomus.it) for the most relevant machine line-up and taking your pick. The alternative, for the lucky few with the time and money, is to visit both.