The fifth anniversary event will take place at the Penn Plaza Pavilion, Midtown Manhattan, with the previously announced dates now changed to the 9th and 10th of September.
When the doors open next week, the event will bring together teams of aspiring packaging professionals from design universities all over the United States.
Picking the packaging competition winners
Last July a selected jury chose 5 teams from a total of 12 entries. These entries will be on display at the show floor, with the university teams representing their entries and ready to give on-the-spot explanations about the ideas behind them.
Those five entries include student teams, with two coming from Rutgers University, two from the University of Oregon, and one entry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute Ohio State.
The top three winners will be announced as part of a cocktail evening and reception, held in conjunction with the event of September 9th, during which the winning teams will be awarded prizes.
The event venue, Penn Plaza Pavilion, is right in the heart of midtown Manhattan, in front of Penn Station, which is one of the biggest confluences on the island and also one of its highest footfall areas.
More exhibitors and floor space
And this year’s edition of the event will follow the growth pattern that has distinguished the annual event since its inception in 2011, when it was held at a relatively obscure studio loft space on West 31st street.
This year’s event will have a 25% bigger exhibition space that will be occupied by an approximate 15% increase in exhibitor numbers, which the organizer says underlines the fact that exhibitors are now looking to occupy larger stands.
The increased size of the event this year builds on the massive growth spurt seen in 2014, when the number of visitors rose by 40%.
Two-day conference program
A full two-day conference program will also include marketing presentations on the color cosmetics market, a presentation about branding and a series of presentations that will focus on both the Italian and South Korean markets.
The first day’s program will start off with morning presentations giving a history of makeup in the US, followed by detailed presentations about the supply chain and branding, and finishing off with afternoon presentations covering all aspects of the Italian market, including the Milan cluster, distribution and the challenges and opportunities in the market.
On the second day the presentations will cover a market overview of the color cosmetics category given by Mintel, a presentation about the digital revolution and its impact on the cosmetics market, followed by afternoon sessions detailing what makes the South Korean market so vibrant and what is happening in this trend-setting environment right now.