Having heard much about Medica over the years, this year for the first time we decided to attend. Flying into Dusseldorf Airport was very easy from Gatwick for Daniel and myself and we were very quickly in the taxi with a Non-English Speaking German, who it quickly became apparent, had no idea where our hotel was. With a bit of gesturing and pointing, we manage to arrive at the Intercity Hotel on Graf-Adolf-Straße (http://www.intercityhotel.com/en/Duesseldorf).
The hotel was very well positioned, only five minutes from the main station, Hauptbahnhof. This meant we were able to get an early start, to arrive in time for the opening. After a bit of pushing a shoving on the train platform, we managed to get on the U79 and arrived at the back entrance of the Exhibition Halls.
The main halls we were keen to get round were 9-17, so made a start in 17. The sheer scale of each exhibition hall is mind-blowing, 16 and 17 were national and international joint participants halls. These made life easy, with respect to navigating in each area. Starting in Brazil and working round, Australia, France, Russia (among others) and then in 16, which featured the UK Pavillion, as well as the USA. Halls 16 and 17 were fairly easy to navigate and it was great to be able to see a vast range of medical devices, including surgical instruments, manufactured around the globe. For us, our first day was fairly exhausting but extremely useful and it was good to see the UK stands, buzzing with activity.
http://www.messe-duesseldorf.de/medica_ca/media/2011_MEDICA_COMPAMED_sitemap.pdf
In the evening, we felt obliged to go in search of some traditional German Fayre. We set off for the old town, which was only three stops away on the tube (Heinrich Heine). The area adjacent to Heinrich Heine Station is a mass of bars and restaurants, which were buzzing with Medica punters. We walked up and down for a bit and stumbled upon what seemed to be a fairly unassuming street, with a restaurant that looked fairly appealing. After queuing for 25 minutes, it soon became apparent that this place was fairly popular. The Restaurant was Brauerei-zum-Schiffchen (http://www.brauerei-zum-schiffchen.de/zum-schiffchen-e.php) and I would definitely recommend a visit, although perhaps not if you are a vegetarian. They have a few specialities, including Roast Pork served with sauerkraut and of course German Dark Beer. At various pauses in the meal, we were instructed by our waiter that we would have “more beer” and two more dark beers were thrown on the table. After this, we visited another bar, to try a few more German Beers and found that 80s music is as popular as ever in Germany. This all set us up nicely for our second day at Medica…
Today we took the U78 which took us into the main entrance. Unlike Halls 16 and 17, 9-15 seemed to be more randomly laid out. If you’re after specific companies then they are easy to locate, but if you are looking to uncover a new supplier, be prepared to wander up and down aisles and aisles of stands. These are stands that range from huge multinational companies to more modest offerings for small companies. Hall 13 was of interest, as there were a number of German Manufacturers, with some fairly innovative ideas. Our time was again taken by trying to cover as much of the halls of interest, as possible, as well as fitting in meetings.
We visited for two full days, which was not enough to cover the whole area and to meet everyone we wanted to meet. The main credit to the event was the amazing mix of countries, cultures and the access this gives you to different markets and their different takes on each medical device technology. It’s a great achievement for the event to facilitate this.
If you are looking for a specific area of medical device technology, surgical instruments, for instance, it isn’t easy to find everyone and everything you may wish to explore. It would be helpful if this was further broken down into specialisms, as with phone networks down, due to the sheer volume of people, we were relying on information terminals that were very busy. That said, we visited with several objectives and would say we met 90% of these. I would also like to see the country pavilion’s extended. The atmosphere in these sections was a lot better and each country had a manned help desk, who were happy to point you in the right direction to help with your requirements.
In summary, I would say that the sheer scale of Medica is mind-blowing. It is a great place to go and meet up with industry colleagues and I get the impression that a lot of people worldwide visit Medica for this purpose. Once a year you can meet with those you work with across the world, which is very important for building relations. We look forward to Medica 2012.