One of the things I’ve been particularly pleased with since becoming editor of this magazine at the beginning of 2017 is that I’ve been able to meet with very many individuals in the industry, both at trade shows and during company visits as part of regional tours.
Indeed, in this issue I report from the northern part of Spain, where I visited two major crane manufacturers and a leading hook manufacturer, all of whom had insights into their businesses and the local market to contribute.
It’s a very valuable experience for myself in learning more about the industry, and I believe it provides a valuable resource for our readers. Talking to companies and members of the industry face-toface provides information and insight that you simply don’t get from just publishing press releases, an approach many trade magazines rely on.
In Hoist, you can read accounts of visits and conversations that you won’t find anywhere else, with in-depth articles that can only be compiled after long, detailed discussions with the industry. We’ll be straight back into our usual routine of getting out there and meeting the industry, starting with Logimat in Germany—a preview of which you can read in this issue, to give you the key information—followed by Modex in Atlanta in the USA in April, and later in April, Cemat in Hannover, Germany.
You can also see some of the photographic highlights from LiftEx in this month’s issue, the leading UK exhibition which I visited at the end of November.
There will be a full report in February’s issue of Hoist, with—spoiler alert—the general conclusion being that the British market has a lot of potential business bubbling under, but that many of those potential deals are being put on hold due to the uncertainty over Brexit.
That’s understandable, given the apparent uncertainty from the UK government on various Brexit-related issues, such as what kind of deal the UK should be aiming for, to what extent the country will remain in the single market, and so on.
All of which makes me feel satisfied that for Hoist, at least, we have our plans for the next year in place, and that we are therefore in a good position to keep bringing you unique, high-quality editorial articles in every issue.
