A few years ago the debate was whether Bauma China would supplant Intermat as the big international show of the year.

Now, having attended both, I think the whole debate was wrong. Intermat survived; so did Bauma China. Now Bauma China is coexisting with another local competitor, ConExpo Asia.

ConExpo in the USA will be the year’s biggest crane show, but I am not sure that it will be particularly international – or at least, not intercontinental. And not just because it is set in a country that is inward-looking. Bauma China returns later this year as well, but I believe will mainly interest the Chinese, and perhaps secondarily Asian customers.

Times have changed, and the new terms of reference are regional, rather than international.

There are lots of new equipment shows in growth areas: The Big Five and Conmex in Dubai, Conexpo Asia–and in September, the first ConExpo Russia–ConBuild Vietnam, BCMT and Excon in India. Visitors from the Middle East, from India or Russia, need not travel to a big show to see the latest batch of cranes.

The construction boom has made international markets too big to be covered by a single show. Even Bauma was weighted toward German manufacturers.

Also, manufacturers are building a greater presence in developing areas, through organic growth, for example Manitowoc and XCMG’s new service centres in Dubai, and by buying small local manufacturers.

These sites offer local points of contact for customers, and local frames of reference for the business. Management changes in the companies have reinforced these changes. Terex Cranes’ former president Steve Filipov now heads up a new post getting business in developing markets.

Cranes are now so complicated now that they cannot be supported in local machine shops. No point then, in going to a show half way around the world to see a crane that cannot be repaired in your country.

All of these changes mean that although the trade shows will survive, their patches will keep shrinking. The era of the global show is over – at least as long as the boom lasts.

* Kudos to Manitowoc for its efforts to do a little for others, as I urged in this space in December. The company has allowed 50 acres of its land in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to be planted as a community garden for the Hmong Community Centre. The centre benefits a group of Indochinese refugees, of which there are 2,000 in Manitowoc County.