Land of (Almost) 1,000 Houses

November 3, 2004

So, I tried for something everyone can understand. At the start of the first day, I slipped a pedometer on my belt and began walking. After covering half the halls and none of the outdoor exhibit space, I took the device off as I walked off the Veronafiere grounds and into the parking lot.
I’d walked five miles. I still had two-thirds of the show to see before heading home.
Verona – the show is usually referred to by its host city, and not the official name – is a huge sprawl of stone. Saws, edgers, tooling and nearly every variety of dimensional stone available on the planet fill 10 halls and nearly every bit of ground between the buildings.
Or, to offer a few other off-the-wall numbers: the event’s official catalog is 576 pages and weighs 2.7 pounds. And, if you figure that the average suburban ranch-style home is 2,700 ft², you’d be able to fit 965 of them in Verona’s indoor and outdoor exhibition space.
Is something this gargantuan actually worth attending? For me, in covering the stone trade, going every year is a given. For you … well, one time would be enough. But, if you have the time and curiosity, you should see it – or one of the large European shows – once.
Before incurring the wrath of U.S.-based show producers, let’s get one thing straight; going to a massive stone fair is no substitute for seeing a stateside event. At something like Coverings or ITSS or StonExpo or Surfaces, it’s easy to do business. You’re speaking the same language and the same currency, and everyone is in compatible time zones. You’ll find everything you need for day-to-day operations without grabbing your passport and spending 12 hours on airliners across the Atlantic.
Going to Verona (or Germany’s Stone+Tec or Spain’s Piedra) does something else. It broadens your horizons to get the international flavor of the stone trade, and in a way that’s much more pleasant than trying to figure out foreign-language instructions in a manual or on a can.
Verona’s exhibitors, for example, hail from 48 different countries, and the U.S. delegation is one of the smallest. Italians dominate the trade-show floors, but products also originate from countries as diverse as Argentina, Finland and Lebanon. You’ll also see representatives from countries that currently don’t – or can’t – appear in the United States, such as the Palestinian Territories or the Democratic Islamic Republic of Iran.
The stone that’s shown is rarely run-of-the-mill, with a wide variety of choices. Most of it is available somewhere in North America, and finding out about a domestic source is usually as easy as asking.
And that’s one of the other interesting things about one of the huge European shows; language is rarely a barrier. Even with some of the smallest booths of stone or machinery suppliers, someone almost always speaks English. Using simple sentence structures – and not parenthetical phrases, such as this one – you can get most of the answers you need.
A day spent on the show floor at Verona might get you thinking that it’s time to get into the importation business. (A simple, one-word bit of advice for 99 percent of everyone out there: don’t.) However, it also gives you the feel that there are choices out there – many more than you first thought – and you’ll come home with new ideas and a renewed feeling about the stone trade.
There’s also the experience of a large European show, which is frankly less hectic than U.S. events. Some of this involves more time spent in asking questions and getting answers. Some of it also involves waiting for the right person or answer, although it’s also not unusual to be offered something close to a good lunch and a drink. (One caution: Sabra liqueur from Israel, despite its sweet orange and chocolate taste, is 70 proof.)
And, in the case of Verona, there’s Italy itself as part of the experience, including the Felliniesque sight of jet helicopters flying big-time stone clients from the show to factories in the surrounding countryside. Stone also appears where U.S. commercial and residential users use tile, carpet or vinyl; even a trip to a local shopping center yields plenty of new installation plans.
Going to a large European show isn’t, for the most part, a buying experience; you’re usually better off dealing with companies closer to home. It is an enriching time, and a busman’s holiday to try once in a lifetime.
Unless, of course, you get hooked and find the particular stone or tooling that you just can’t seem to find anywhere else. You won’t know until you try.

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Clarification: In the Manual Production Center review (Stone Business, August 2004), the pricing on the Ghines Systhema is a price quoted from a U.S. distributor, and not from Ghines s.r.l. Prices may vary from different sources on the machine, and the amount stated shouldn’t be considered as a list price from Ghines.
In all of our machine reviews, we always advise that it’s wise to check pricing, as models change and the U.S. dollar/euro exchange rate continues to fluctuate.