Trade show in drive to increase visitor numbers

Ibla - the sonorous new name for International Biotech and Lab Automation Europe - is to organise free coach travel from southern England science hubs in order to boost attendance

Now entering its 4th year, Ibla (International Biotech and Lab Automation Europe) has announced a new scheme to make the event more accessible to its core audience: working researchers.

Under the terms of the Hosted Buyer scheme, major exhibitors will sponsor free coaches for invited visitors from selected science hubs throughout the south of the UK.

According to Charlie Hastings of Ibla, the scheme meets a real need: "While we have built up a core attendance over the last four years of key decision makers and influencers within the life science research community, we realise that for many potential new visitors the difficulties of travelling into London are a real drawback.

"After consulting with exhibitors and visitors we have devised this scheme which, if successful, can easily be expanded in future years to other parts of the UK".

The scheme was welcomed by Martin Biggs of GRI: "Ibla is a major event for us, offering the opportunity to present the whole of GRI to our customers.

"However, we would naturally like to see visitor numbers increase and agree that travel from outside London is an issue for many researchers.

"This new scheme is a positive step towards meeting the challenge and we look forward to its success".

In addition to free coach travel, visitors selected for the scheme will also receive a free lunch voucher and, where appropriate, admittance to one of the Lab Automation seminar sessions.

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