Chinaplas Tries Out New Shanghai Digs this April

Chinaplas, which rotates annually between Shanghai and Guangzhou, is moving to the massive, new National Exhibition and Convention Center (NECC) in Hongqiao, Shanghai this April 24-27, having outgrown its previous location, according to show organizer, Adsale Exhibition Services. The show had been staged at the Shanghai New International Expo Center (SNIEC) in Pudong, which sits just over 22 miles due west of the NECC in the newer Pudong district of Shanghai. In recent years, Chinaplas had filled all of the SNIEC’s halls, as well as temporary exhibit tents outside the halls, and still had would-be exhibitors languishing on a waiting list. Space had been an issue since the 2012 event, according to Adsale.

The NECC, which has 15.8-million ft² (1.47 million m²) of constructed space, opened its doors in 2015 and has been in full operation since 2016. It has 400,000 m² of indoor space, including 16 total exhibition halls, 13 of which are designated as large, with three considered small—‘large’ halls cover 310,000 ft², while ‘small’ halls cover 107,000 ft². In addition to offices and conference rooms, the central area of the structure, which is shaped like a four-leaf clover, is a commercial plaza providing food and other services.

In 2016, when Chinaplas was last in Shanghai at the SNIEC, the show had a record 3323 exhibitors covering more than 240,000-m² of space. Despite increasing the space for Chinaplas 2018 by 100,000-m² to 340,000-m² (which would cover 800 basketball courts), space demand has once again outstripped supply, according to Adsale. The company closed space application in November 2016 with more than 4500 requests to exhibit, with a proposed total show area that would exceed available hall space by 40%.

The NECC is just under one mile from the Hongqiao Transportation Hub, which is connected with Hongqiao Airport and Hongqiao Railway Station via the city’s primary east/west subway line, the Metro Line 2.