Organizers of the new Timber Processing & Energy Expo report that the event booth space is 60% sold out as of March 1, 2012. TP&EE will be held October 17-19 at the Portland Exposition Center in Portland, Ore.
Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. is affiliated with Hatton-Brown Expositions, the show producer. Hatton-Brown publishes several wood products industry magazines, including Timber Processing, Wood Bioenergy, Timber Harvesting and Southern Loggin’ Times. It is also affiliated with Panel World magazine. “We’re still seven months away,” comments event Co-Chairman Rich Donnell, who is also the Editor-in-Chief at Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. “The show is almost selling itself, which indicates to me that companies are anxious to experience a new venue in the Northwest.”
The Portland Expo Center is conveniently located off Interstate 5 between downtown Portland and Vancouver, Washington. It’s only minutes from the Portland International Airport and has immediate access to the Max Light Rail.
TP&EE is scheduled for Hall D, which encompasses 72,000 sq. ft., more than half of which will be sold as booth space, along with an abundance of outdoor space. The overall Exposition Center sits on 60 acres and includes five halls with 330,000 sq. ft. The facility hosts more than 100 events annually, attracting in excess of 500,000 attendees.
Machinery and supplier exhibitors will cater to an attendee base of primary producers of lumber, veneer/plywood and engineered wood products as well as wood-to-energy producers.
The previous Portland show under a different ownership simply ran its course, Donnell says. “It was a great show for many, many years. But I believe the machinery community and the mill community are looking for a new event that is organized and operated by people who are hands-on with the wood products industry. In fact, people have been asking us for years to do this.”
Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. is no stranger to “show business.” It is affiliated with the biennial Panel & Engineered Lumber International Conference & Expo and Bioenergy Fuels & Products Conference & Expo held in Atlanta. It also conducts in-woods logging expos throughout the South.
“We’re making this event a little more cost reasonable for the exhibitors,” Donnell adds, though I believe what the exhibitors really want to see is an enthusiastic attendee base. We’re now beginning our promotion efforts to the wood products companies and personnel. Many of them had quit coming to the Portland show because they weren’t getting enough out of it.”
Donnell says the new location should be an attraction to attendees. “It’s very open, very accessible, plenty of on-site parking.”
Donnell adds that these same potential attendees are the readers of Timber Processing, Panel World and Wood Bioenergy magazines. “They know us. They know we’ll give this show 110% with them in mind.”