The premier was a major success. opti took place over six halls of the Fairground Munich for the first time – and the faces and survey responses of the around 28,000 visitors and 631 exhibitors painted a clear picture: this was a crucial step forward into the future of opti. Among those surveyed, 94 percent of the trade show visitors and 91 percent of the exhibiting companies awarded the “new” opti with the highest grades.
Munich, 27 January 2019 – Virtually all visitors started with a short inspection of the hall layouts. With opti now growing to six halls, opti fans first had to grow accustomed to the changes to the familiar layout and look of opti before setting off to their favourite parts of the exhibition. “The professional visitors quickly and adequately adjusted to the new hall structure with three entrances. They praised the clear hall profiles”, explains Dieter Dohr, Chairman of the GHM Gesellschaft für Handwerksmessen mbH. “opti earned top scores with nine out of ten visitors and seven out of ten exhibitors when surveyed by an independent opinion research institute. However, regardless of these very high approval ratings, we will also this year continue to follow the recipe for success we’ve been pursuing since 2008: After the trade show, we will comprehensively analyse this year’s edition to continuously improve opti!”
In addition to the classic “search for innovation”, the interest of visitors increasingly focused on the desire to “initiate new business relationships” and on “continued training and education”. opti managed to even better meet these demands by compactly bundling all “knowledge islands” with diverse offers in Hall C4, instead of spreading these out over the individual halls as before. Directly adjacent, visitors could explore the opti areas Job Market and Campus, the Forum, and the SHOWCASE revolving around the key topic of the “Customer Journey”.
The four stations “Strategy”, “Need”, “Buy”, and “Use” clearly illustrated the diverse elements opticians need to consider when designing their customer approaches. Guided tours offered visitors concrete tips which they can quickly implement for their own business using best-practice examples. This will continue after the trade show as well. “We’ve also created a digital knowledge area surrounding the “Customer Journey”, which is available at www.opti-showcase.de /en over the next 365 days. With it, opti takes an important step into becoming a 24/7 knowledge database for opticians!”, clarifies Dieter Dohr.
Directly besides the SHOWCASE, curious visitors could quench their thirst for knowledge with exciting lectures and panel discussion at the opti FORUM. Nine out of ten visitors visited at least one of the 34 lectures. It’s not altogether surprising that the most popular lectures revolved around exploring the best customer approach, with lectures such as “Where does which customer buy their pair of glasses now and in the future?”, “Using events to reach customers who are ready to buy”, and the opti trend talk “Greater visibility through social media?”, organised together with two top influencers. Another highlight at the Forum was the award for BLOGGER SPECTACLE Award 2019 to the Best Newcomer in the opti BOXES. The opti freshman Rounder Rounder from Hong Kong was awarded with the prize by fashion, lifestyle, and eyewear bloggers from all over Europe.
The next opti takes place from 10 to 12 January 2020 in Munich.
