by Nick Drew | Tue 10 Sep 2019
Postcards from Maxpo 2019 Finland
Last week I was lucky enough to be invited by the guys and girls at leading Finnish publication Koneporssi, to attend the Maxpo 2019 Show in Finland, which took place over 3 days at the Hyvinkää Airfield about 60 km from the country’s capital city Helsinki.
I’ll be reporting in more detail on the show in Earthmovers Magazine in due course, but wanted to bring a flavour of the event, of which Koneporssi were the main media partners, to the blog. As at most of these shows around the world there was something for everyone, but with it being a Bauma year there was little in the way of brand-new products for us to see, but there was plenty of region specific kit to check out around the showground.
There was still plenty to wet the appetite though and 14,500 visitors attended over the 3-day period, which also included the Saturday, allowing those working during the week to attend with their families, something we could learn from for our shows in the UK. Our friends at Lännen took me up 17 metres in the man basket on their latest 8800K model for some great shots of the showground!
According to the show organisers attendees were slightly down on the last show two years ago, but the quality of visitor was better with more serious buyers coming to check out what’s new. The exhibitors had lots of enquiries for business and were said to be very happy with the results from attending the show. One of the largest excavators at the show was this Hitachi Zaxis 690LCH on the Rotator Oy stand. The company was also celebrating an anniversary of 40 years as a JLG access platform dealership.
There was a strong emphasis on the environment and eco-friendly machinery in particular electric powered and Hybrid machines. According to Finnish Komatsu dealer Suomen Rakennuskone Oy the demand for the Japanese manufacturers Hybrid models is steadily on the increase in Finland.
The dealer had two examples on its stand at Maxpo the UK built 21-tonne class HB215LC was being put through its paces on the demonstration plot while the 36-tone HB365LC was on static display.
As has become customary at these types of shows nowadays there was also a display of historical equipment, some of which was working periodically during the duration of the event.
Of particular interest to me was the rare Finnish built Fiskars excavator, which I was lucky enough to catch in action. I believe Earthmovers long standing contributor, Eoghan Daly, who also attended the show, is going to report in more detail on this gathering of classic machines for the magazine.
At the other end of the scale Avant had many machines on demonstration at Maxpo including the Zero Emissions e6 electric powered compact loader with remote controlled backhoe loader attachment.
There is always glamour at these events and these two ladies on the Finnish Allu screening bucket stand were more than happy to give us a big Finnish smile for the camera in front of one of their latest products!
Lookout for more videos from our Maxpo experience over the coming days on the blog and our various social media platforms in due course.
Here's a great overview video of the Maxpo Show from the guys at Koneporssi, featuring a cameo appearance from yours truly!
The next Maxpo event will take place in 2021 at the Hyvinkää Airport site, 2nd to 4th of September, hopefully we will be back!