About 6,000 visitors attended World of Material Handling at the Mainz trade fair centre from 5-23 May.

Linde Material Handling surprised industry members when the leading European forklift manufacturer announced it would not exhibit at CeMAT 2014 last year (Forkliftaction.com News #639). Now we know why.

While the global forklift industry was still preparing for CeMAT, Linde Material Handling was already attracting visitors to its worldwide in-house exhibition, the World of Material Handling. WOMH kicked off in Mainz, Germany on 5 May and ended on 23 May, final day of CeMAT in Hannover.

Linde MH reported that about 6,000 "customers, interested parties, journalists and colleagues" from 40 countries attended expert presentations, technical exhibitions and product demonstrations at 20,000 sqm (1,858 sqft.) of exhibition space at the Mainz trade fair centre over three weeks.

"We are delighted with the success of the World of Material Handling. The trade fair more than exceeded our expectations, in particular with regard to the number and prestige of the visitors," says Theodor Maurer, chairman of Linde MH's management board.

"International interest was noticeably high, with guests from overseas making up around 60% of the visitors," Maurer adds.

Linde MH spokeswoman Heike Oder tells Forkliftaction.com News that based on what the company learned from road shows, customer events and recent product clinics, it believes it can better respond to its customers' expectations and requirements at such events. "For the time being, our focus in the field of organised events is on individual projects that offer LMH customers the opportunity to immediately experience our products and test them in direct comparison with competitor products."

Asked how much Linde MH invested in staging WOMH, Oder explains that the event was a combination of several national and international customer events, employee training, an open day for the employees and their families, press events and a truck clinic. "So, if you compare the exhibition part at the WOMH with our participation at the CeMAT 2011, we have been even more cost-efficient with the WOMH."

While Linde MH has deemed the event a success, it has not decided when it will stage the next WOMH.

Among the 10 product innovations demonstrated at WOMH were the new electric Linde Evo truck with 1.2-2.0 T load capacities, the Linde E60-E80 trucks, the Linde Safety Pilot driver assistance system, Linde E20 to E50 electric forklifts with 2.0-5.0T load capacities and the Linde T16-T20 pedestrian pallet trucks with lithium-ion batteries.

Visitors were also drawn to the stands of 18 Linde partners in the exhibition area, including Volkswagen Drive Systems, Wemag and Continental.