Visitor numbers on the opening day of the W10 Working with Wood technology show were “radically up” on the last exhibition in 2008, according to director John Smith-Bodden.

Speaking on the second day of the event at the Birmingham NEC, Mr Smith-Bodden said it had “opened with a bang”.

“It was difficult to get on stands because they were so busy,” he said. “It will be interesting to see if these sorts of numbers carry on through the rest of the show.”

According to exhibitors, the floor area covered by W10 was less that two years ago, but the final tally of stands at the show was around 200 thanks to a “late flurry of bookings”.

“We had a number of drop-outs, which was unfortunate, but the good news is we managed to replace them,” said Mr Smith-Bodden.

He added that the feedback from stands was that more companies were visiting than in the past, even though each one may have sent fewer personnel to the show.

“They’re saying that they’re not getting groups from each business, but are seeing more businesses represented overall, which is good news,” he said. “In sales language that adds up to more ‘buying units’ at the show; people who are here to do business, rather than just look at machines.”

Among the exhibitors, Francis Dalton, of the newly rebranded machinery manufacturing, service and rebuild specialist DaltonWadkin, agreed that the opening Sunday had been busy.

“Numbers seemed to tail off on the Monday, probably because that’s a day people want to go into their offices,” he said. “But we expect more on the third day, which has traditionally been one of the busiest.”

DaltonWadkin was giving a new compact Elcon panel saw, the 2.7×1.38m 135D, its global exhibition debut.

Jason Ruddle at Gang-Nail Systems said the company had taken around £130,000 of inquiries for the latest version of its StairCon staircase CAD/CAM system.

“Of course, that’s not orders yet and will mean a lot of follow ups when we get back to the office,” he said. “But it is encouraging.”

Weinig UK managing director Neil Forbes said the company had been busy during the first two days of the show. The main focus of the stand was the fact that Weinig UK now also sells HolzHer machines, following the latter’s acquisition by the Weinig Group in April. On display were a HolzHer edgebander, vertical panel saw and EasyMaster CNC machining centre.

A full show review follows in TTJ.