The Almost-Naked Truth

NUREMBERG, Germany – In all the years I’ve attended Stone+tec, I thought I’d seen it all when watching a woman play a white violin amid a selection of tombstones. Or, having a couple of carvers finish up a sandstone replica of a Wartburg, the automotive symbol of the German Democratic Republic.

This morning, however, I thought I really did see it all – as in a nude woman attempting to leap out of a slab of marble.

Click on photo to enlargeActually, make that women. And hold that thought while I attend to some business, as did several thousand people today at the Nurnberg Messe trade center.

Held in odd-numbered years, Stone+tec offers a trade show in a central European location that draws a good crowd from Germany and neighboring countries. While the event features plenty of German products – mainly in machinery and software – the focus is on international trade, making the show an interesting barometer for stone’s performance.

In that context, Stone+tec showed some definite improvement from a few years ago, with a livelier opening-day crowd. Most of the halls had brisk traffic, with none of the empty, bowling-alley feel of aisles in mid-recession 2009.
The most-intense action seemed to be from the exhibit halls featuring stone technology and tooling. The areas weren’t as massive and machine-strewn as in 2005 or 2007, but you could hear a strong background buzz of noise, which usually indicates that most booths feature more customers than exhibitor staff.

Two areas with a bit less interest than usual seemed to be the monument section – Stone+tec’s always been strong in this – and the mini-hall dedicated to Chinese vendors. Traffic around the booths dedicated to monuments seemed lighter than in years past, and the China aisles looked empty. (Chinese vendors didn’t bring as much large hardware, as in bridge saws and calibrating machines, as in years past, either.)