The 18th edition of SICUREZZA, the two-yearly Italian international exhibition on security and fire prevention, has closed its doors. This ‘special’ edition, staged only 12 months after the last Fair, marks a transition in the development of the event, establishing a new time-slot which makes it the only fair in the sector to be held in Europe in the autumn of odd-numbered calendar years. SICUREZZA 2017 will run at Fiera Milano from 15 to 17 November.
During the three day event, 18,955 attended the fair: many installers and technicians, and numerous end-users and security managers, in other words “company men” and top executives from government bodies, all seeking the latest products in the fields of anti-intrusion, access control, video-surveillance, home automation, fire-prevention and surveillance. The Minister of the Interior, Mr. Angelino Alfano, came to open the proceedings. He thanked the forces of law and order – who were at the exhibition to demonstrate the new technologies they use daily in their work – for their contribution during Expo Milano 2015.
Corrado Peraboni, CEO of Fiera Milano, had this to say: “SICUREZZA 2015 has played a fundamental role in the strategic repositioning of the exhibition within the European security exhibition scenario. It has served as a ‘bridge’, moving the event from even- to odd-numbered calendar years, a necessary change of timescale approved by companies in the sector to favor the process of internationalization, opening up new business opportunities in countries located around the Mediterranean, an area with great development potential for this sector. The international nature of SICUREZZA is also confirmed by the interest shown by 130 top hosted buyers from 31 countries, mainly from Egypt, the Maghreb, Russia, South Africa, Georgia and Kazakhstan, who held 1,000 meetings with exhibitors at the show.”
Buyers visiting the show saw new offerings in the spheres of anti-intrusion, video-surveillance – especially using AHD and wireless technology – fire-prevention, home automation and drones, which for the first time played a starring role at the event.
The “SICUREZZA Drone Expo” exhibition area, organized by the company Mediarkè, provided a stage for various Italian drone manufacturers and companies representing international manufacturers, as well as training schools for drone pilots and related associations. Two conferences ran on the subject of UAVs (drones).
Giuseppe Garri, Exhibition Manager of the event, said: “I think I can safely say that SICUREZZA 2015 is a bet that has paid off. We all invested together on this bet: ourselves from the Fair, the trade associations, trade media and especially the companies, which, only twelve months after the previous show have come back and been part of the project with us. I say ‘bet’ because security is a dynamic sector, but it tends to move slowly on the technological front. And yet, thanks to the people who decided to put their faith in us, the exhibition was able to offer any number of new products and solutions. This is thanks to the new brands which attended, and thanks also to the brands that have been faithful supporters over the years, most of whom have taken up the challenge of attending the fair, not only with their products, but also with truly integrated solutions, adopting a market approach that has dominated the sector in Europe for some time now.
“With regard to visitors attending the show, here again I think I am right in saying that we have achieved great things. Numbers of visitors to the event were almost the same as last year, with a slight decline precisely because the two events were staged so close together. On the other hand, quality was higher than ever before. The exhibitors themselves have talked to me about raising their profiles, a thirst for knowledge and also a strong presence of security and facility managers: yet another sign of growth. In other words, we are heading in the right direction.”
There was also a broad and positive response to the far-reaching training. The 67 events organized during the three day Fair, which included conferences, seminars and workshops, were attended by more than 1,800 participants. This is a tangible sign that trade professionals have finally realized the importance of constantly staying abreast of developments: understanding which way the market is heading, ensuring we are up to date on standards, recognizing future prospects, learning about relatively new topics such as internet security or the Internet of Things, have become fundamental if we want to remain competitive in a constantly changing market, which requires ever-more specific, ever-more hi-tech knowledge. Not to mention the fact that we need to be able to “stand our ground” in the face of well-informed, demanding customers who, whether in a B2B or consumer context, are increasingly demanding solutions that fit their own particular requirements.
For this reason, one of the buzzwords at SICUREZZA 2015 was “solutions”. It was the focus of conversation at many of the stands – which had display areas focusing on the main spheres of application, from retail to city traffic, from airports to museums – and especially at the many initiatives organized for the show.
From the Security for Retail Show, which hosted a range of proposals geared to small POSs and the large-scale retail trade, boosted by activities like workshops and vertical talk shows, to the Solutions Gallery, which hosted examples of solutions applied to particular spheres. Many votes were collected at the show and online, leading to awards for several companies: Apice came top, with a voice-recognition building automation solution for people with disabilities; Traffic Scanner by InfoProget came second, with a solution for monitoring traffic and vehicle flows; Canon came third with its solution for video-surveillance and flow management for the retail trade.
