Regardless of their size, woodworking companies from small to major-league are increasingly using the same machinery. This international market trend has direct implications for LIGNA as the world's leading trade fair for machinery, plant and tools for the woodworking and timber processing industry. A new distribution of themes has been announced for the event in 2017, which on the one hand addresses this market shift, and at the same time makes LIGNA even easier for visitors to navigate. The new approach enjoys the full backing of the show's exhibitors.

Hannover. LIGNA 2017 features a brand-new site layout jointly conceptualized by Deutsche Messe, the woodworking branch of the German Woodworking Machinery Manufacturers' Association (VDMA) and LIGNA exhibitors. "We had two aims in mind: to more closely reflect changing trends and market developments, and to make it easier for visitors to find what they are looking for", says Dr. Bernhard Dirr, head of the VDMA's woodworking branch.

Christian Pfeiffer, who is responsible for LIGNA at Deutsche Messe, adds: "The new layout of themes does justice to the fact that woodworking technologies can no longer be meaningfully differentiated in terms of the size of the companies using them."

There will be a total of seven display categories:

The display categories have also been rearranged for more logical transitions between related topics on site.

"We have already started allocating stand space to exhibitors, and we're getting very positive feedback. The industry's market leaders have been placed, and we are now allocating the remaining space. The new layout has proved a great success", says Dr. Bernhard Dirr.

In future visitors won't have to walk so far, and the themed clusters will be more compact, and more logically laid out. "The key benefit for customers is that they'll be able to find what they are looking for more quickly", says Christian Pfeiffer.

The market leaders will be spread across several halls. The displays that make up the category "Tools, Machinery and Plant for Custom and Mass Production" (in short: "Secondary Processing") will be sited in halls 11 to 15 as well as in Hall 27. Biesse, for example, will have a stand in Hall 11, IMA in Hall 12, SCM and Felder – along with suppliers of electric power tools – in Hall 13, HOMAG in hall 14/15, and Weinig in Hall 27.

At the upcoming LIGNA, "Surface Treatment Technology" gets its own dedicated display in Hall 17, which is close to – and thematically related to – the displays of "Wood-Based Panel Production" in Hall 26, where Siempelkamp and Dieffenbacher are exhibiting. Also located in Hall 26 is "Energy from Wood", right next to "Sawmill Technology" in Hall 25, where the lineup of exhibitors includes Linck, Möhringer and EWD. Hall 16 houses a completely new display category entitled "Machine Components and Automation Technology". The topic areas covered by the exhibitors in Hall 16 – located between "Surface Treatment Technology" and "Secondary Processing" – include electric automation, power transmission and control, data exchange and automation software.

The presentations of "Forestry Technology" will be housed as before on the open-air site and in the pavilions beneath the EXPO Canopy. Here, too, the new layout will lead to beneficial synergies. The modified spread of displays on the open-air site is largely shaped around the main stages in the production chain.

Last year the world's leading trade fair for machinery, plant and tools for the woodworking and timber processing industry attracted 1,552 exhibitors, some 56 percent of whom were from outside Germany. The displays occupied a total area of 121,195 square meters. The principal nations represented, apart from Germany, Italy and Austria, were the People's Republic of China, Sweden and the United States of America. A total of 93,099 visitors, 40 percent of whom came from abroad, were on hand to see the latest new products, investing heavily in new technologies as a result.