Schunk: An ode to K Show 2022

Duesseldorf International Airport sits within a couple miles of Messe Duesseldorf, the enormous 1,500-employee, 3.3 million-sq.-ft. trade fair campus that recently hosted K Show 2022, the largest rubber and plastics gathering in the world.

While the airport looked small during our downwind approach to DUS Oct. 17, the fair grounds did not.

The sprawling campus comprises more than 20 buildings, and that does not include a 5,000-person stadium that hosted the Davis Cup in 1993, nor the administrative offices for Messe Duesseldorf (also the name of the trade show organizer), where we picked up our press credentials for the Oct. 14-26 show.

The week-long trip to the 12th-century city at the confluence of the Rhine and Dussel rivers in northwestern Germany came as part of my coverage of K Show with the Plastics News team, the Detroit-based sister publication to Rubber News.

While I enjoyed some of the best beer, sauerbraten and schnitzel I've ever had, our busy schedule prevented too much sightseeing.

I did become very familiar with the Rheinbahn tram system, evidence that infrastructure has been rebuilt after the city was devastated by Allied forces during World War II.

We usually arrived at the show site on the tram before sunrise, and left our spacious, if initially sparse, newsroom after dark.

The kind folks at Arburg GmbH, a German machine manufacturing firm, dropped off a basket of snacks on the first day, and PN Editor Don Loepp was able to secure some coffee, a couple cases of Stille (natural, or tap) and Sprudel (sparkling) water and a case of Bluna (orange soda).

Soon our newsroom was humming along, as company representatives came to us for interviews and, more often than not, we went to them, high-fiving each other in the hallway for the "shift change," as PN Senior Reporter Frank Esposito called the odd space between interviewing and writing.

Food trucks—my personal favorite was The Fish Shack, which sold delicious pickled herring sandwiches—dotted the grounds as we logged miles between buildings, each as big as a basketball arena.

The show dailies we published were dispersed by a circulation crew of what appeared to be German students, as each morning they offered up a Plastics News for the crush of attendees.

With literally thousands of exhibitors, from ExxonMobil to the family-owned Bay City Plastics Machinery Inc. of Bangor Township, Mich., the show was the place to be for executives, chemists, engineers, sales reps and academics.

And journalists.

Ultimately, our crew of about a dozen wrote and photographed its way to 150 stories across six show dailies, 122 of which were written at the show.

As show-goers perused our work, the global nature to our journalism struck me.

The work we produced at the show was as significant as the industry experience I gained, and I look forward to the 2023 Rubber Division-sponsored International Elastomer Conference and Rubber News' future ITEC shows with this international perspective in mind.

Schunk is a reporter for Rubber News. He can be reached at [email protected].