The exhibitors have spent months – even years – preparing for Bauma 2004. Visitors too should by now have made their plans, if they hope to find a hotel room anywhere in Munich between 29 March and 4 April. Held once every three years, Bauma is the week when the world’s construction equipment industry all gathers together. For the crane industry too, it is our single biggest international meeting.

While the social element is an important part of Bauma, the hardware on show represents the state of the art. Months of engineering and unimaginably huge sums of money have been spent on developing new products for Bauma. It is – literally as well as metaphorically – the world’s biggest construction equipment launchpad. In 2004 the gross exhibition area is 500,000m2. That’s something like the size of 80 soccer pitches. Put another way: if the exhibition area were a perfect circle and you stood in the middle, you would be 400m (437 yards) from the perimeter.

The exhibition area is 50,000m2 bigger than last time, to accommodate a new section for mining equipment. Whatever else you do,wear comfortable shoes. There is three times the exhibition space that there was at Conexpo-Con/Agg 2002. With 390,000 visitors at Bauma 2001, there were about three times the number of people at Bauma than there were at Conexpo too. Next month’s Cranes Today will include a full preview on all the new crane industry launches at the show, but just to whet your appetite, and to convince you that if you have not made any travel plans yet, then you should get on with itimmediately, here are just a few of the attractions that visitors can expect to see:
• Prominent on the Manitowoc Crane Group stand we can expect a Grove GMK 5030, the new 30t capacity all terrain with a 43m main boom. We will also get first sight of the Manitowoc 15000 crawler crane, the first unit of the first ever Manitowoc model to be built in Europe, at Grove’s factory in Wilhelmshaven,Germany. As reported last year, this 250t capacity model, announced at Intermat 2003, is a European version of the 999, with Can bus electronics and a Mercedes engine instead of a Cummins.
• On Liebherr’s stand will be the LTC 1050, a 50t compact crane designed to compete against Demag’s city cranes as well as conventional 50t all terrains. Though its 36m telescopic boom is a few metres short of the standard in this capacity class, a five-section lattice jib can be carried and pinned together to give an extra 15m. Liebherr will also announce details of – and perhaps even show, if there is enough space on its stand – the new LG 1750, a 750t capacity lattice boom crane mounted on an eight-axle chassis, with cruciform outriggers and a variable boom system. This machine has been developed for wind turbine erectors.
• Terex’s stand will include the new AC 250, a 250t capacity all terrain with a class-leading 80m main boom, and the AC 120-1, which is a re-working of the AC 120 with the addition of the Unimec boom pinning system, IC-1 controls and a data bus communication system. Among the other novelties will be new truck-mounted tower cranes shown by Liebherr, Spierings and Arcomet.

Then there will also be more than a dozen manufacturers of truck loader cranes from around the world – including Soosan of Korea – exhibiting a whole raft of new models.

Almost as many tower crane manufacturers will also show their latest product development initiatives. Crawlers, truck cranes, industrial cranes, telehandlers, hydraulic gantries and lifting machines you have never even seen before will all be on show somewhere around the massive fairground, along with all kinds of accessories and end-of-line attachments and every conceivable machine component.

The Cranes Today stand will be bigger and better than ever before. We welcome all readers to put your feet up for 15 minutes, take refreshment with the team and exchange gossip.You can find us outside at location F7-704/10. But don’t expect to see the traditional Cranes Today big red bus. It will not be there this year. Instead we have a large modern booth with attractions that include a crane operator training simulator, courtesy of the Canadian company Simlog. Come and have a go at the Cranes Today Operator Challenge and test your skills against the computer.