HANOVER, Germany -- The next Ligna is set for May 27-31, 2019, and its organizers, Deutsche Messe and the German Woodworking Machinery Manufacturers’ Association (VDMA Holzbearbeitungsmaschinen), have announced that exhibitor registrations are coming in at a rapid rate.

Exhibition space at the trade fair for machinery, plant and tools for the woodworking and timber processing industry is already more than 80 percent booked. Ligna 2017 featured 1,520 exhibitors and occupied 1,400,000 square feet of display space.

“I’m pleased to say we’re getting lots of first-time exhibitors, not to mention plenty of repeat exhibitors, many of whom are staging bigger displays this time around,” said Christian Pfeiffer, Deutsche Messe’s global director Ligna and Woodworking Events. “What’s more, the outstanding response exhibitors are showing for the event serves as confirmation that we made the right move in 2017, at which time when we completely revamped the site, the layout of display categories and thus the locations of virtually every single exhibitor.

“Next year, the majority of the exhibitors will be retaining the locations they had in 2017 following the big change. The Surface Technology display launched in 2017 will be home to a number of first-time exhibitors in 2019.”

One of the regular Ligna features is the Wood Industry Summit, with the themes, “Integrated Woodworking – Customized Solutions," “Smart Surface Technologies” and “Access to Resources and Technology.

Said Pfeiffer, “Timber processing and woodworking are no longer just about standalone machines. Instead, what we have now are digitally integrated processes and systems built around machines. Ligna 2019 will thus traverse a wealth of real-life applications, with a strong focus on machine demonstrations and the innovative power of digitization and automation.”

The show will have a strong focus on the role of automation and digitization in combining the customer-centricity of product individualization with the economies of scale of large-series production. As well as enabling cost-effective batch-size-one production, these smart woodworking and timber processing technologies are yielding gains in energy and resource efficiency.

There is a great deal of interest in these technologies at the moment, with the business climate looking very positive and the German Woodworking Machinery Manufacturers’ Association reporting healthy order books for 2018. The United States and China, the two most important export markets for high-tech woodworking machinery, are forecast to grow 8 percent this year. Apart from digitization, the main drivers of this boom for wood-industry technology suppliers are the worldwide megatrends of sustainable building and urbanization. See http://www.ligna.de.