This year we went even to the far East, Shanghai, to be at the CIPS 2017 and we’re here today with our usual opening article, the editorial.
This editorial is also available in: 
italiano
The 15th of November Maurizio and Agnese (who deals with the italian-english translations here on DaniReef ) and I left for Shanghai in order to visit one of the most important oriental fairs, the CIPS 2017, at its 21st exhibition. Also, the appointment for the next CIPS‘s exhibition will be in Canton on September 2018.
You’ve already seen fair’s reportages here on DaniReef, we went all around the world to tell you about the Macna and the Interzoo, but the CIPS is completely another thing. We’re talking about an immense fair, where the major part of the distributors are chinese companies, both already known and start-up. Many companies brought new ideas, new products to develop, or projects in embryonal phase.
Even the booths inside the fair are very different from the ones we’re used to see in Europe and America.
Entering the CIPS 2017
As we always do let’s begin with this editorial, starting with our personal experience in order to narrate the fair. Then, in the next few days, we are going to deepen the most interesting products, show you the fish, the beautiful aquascapings and the marine aquariums setting competition.
Let’s start with an easy picture of the fair, developed through 2 buildings (out of the 8 present) and levels, in total 4 pavilions. Moreover there were other two smaller pavilions with the principal entrance of the exhibition. The metro stop it’s practically inside the fair itself, and then you have to queue a very long time, both for buying the tickets and be accredited. And the lines are controlled at sight by soldiers in uniform.
We, thanks to DaniReef pass, entered directly from the V.I.P. entry without queue, just passing through the metal detector, like any other place we’ve visited in China.
The fair is enormous, even if it doesn’t use all the pavilions of Shanghai‘s complex, which is built in order to resemble a flower, with the eight buildings around a central structure like petals.
But in China isn’t like we’re used to in Europe. The pressroom, called V.I.P. room for the occasion, had a about ten tables, some leather armchairs, some snacks and water. No lockers or computers, so we had to carry our bags with us. However, there are warning about not leaving things around everywhere. They’re yellow plastic cards hung everywhere in the booths.
As you can see from the previous picture the booths are in line with the rest of the fair: enormous, huge, incredibly big. And all very well-finished. Except some little booths, the not written rule is that everyone has to emerge.
Italian, foreign and Asian companies
There were also Italian participants, but they weren’t with their own booths, but generally in their distributors’. Even the American companies didn’t have particular booths, with the exception of Seachem and Red Sea.
We remember the presence of the Italian Sicce, Teco, Hydor and Prodac. In addiction to these we can also report Aquatlantis, Collar, Ikari, Reeflowers and the already mentioned Seachem and Red Sea. And then inside the distributors there were also Aquarium Systems, Biopod, Ecotech Marine, Fauna Marin, JBL, Ocean Nutrition, Prodibio, Royal Exlusiv, Salifert, Skimz, Tropic Marine, Two Little Fishies e Vertex. It’s hard to mention all of them because they weren’t promoted in their websites or in the official publication. It was really hard to find them in the first place.
And then there were the Asian companies, starting from the well known AutoAqua, Bubble Magus, Conch, Hailea, Jebao, Macro Aqua, Maxspect e Zetlight. And then again the outsiders, those of you never heard of, and in the next page we will talk about some of these.
The article continues with all the news, the new equipments, a bit of aquascaping, fish, shrimps on page two.
