This page tells you about the history of the European PLACE Conference.
May 26th-28th 2025 – München, Germany
Upcoming:
19th European PLACE Conference in Munich, Germany
The first European PLACE conference under the bdvi will take place in the Le Meridien Hotel in Munich, Germany.
June 19th 2023 – Würzburg
Founding the new European PLACE Committee
Founding Meeting of the new European PLACE Committee in Würzburg
In a hybrid virtual and in-person meeting representatives of the industry got together and founded the new European PLACE Committee in Bürgerspital’s Teufelskeller (“Devil’s Cellar”) in Würzburg on June 19th in 2023. From now on, bdvi, a german packaging engineer association (bdvi.org), is acting as new patron. The Committee’s goal is to continue the organization of a biannual conference for the European flexible packaging and converting industry in order to exchange knowledge about Polymers, Laminates, Adhesives, Coatings and Extrusion.
March 2023 – Bonn
An era ends
Bonn
The last Tappi European Committee Meeting
On 22. March 2023 the last committee meeting from the Tappi European PLACE Committee took place, where the members decided to close the committee after the changed situation, due to the Moratorium of the Tappi board of directors to focus on activities in USA/Canada.
What has started on 24. May 1995 as “European Adhoc Committee” came to an end after 28 years and an established biannual PLACE conference always in May of the uneven years.
2022 – Bratislava, Slovakia
Bratislava
The last conference under TAPPI umbrella
The 2021 postponed conference took finally place on 10.-12. October in the Sheraton Hotel.
Günter Schubert has organised this “18th Biennial TAPPI European PLACE Conference” and 93 attendees came to Bratislava, even if the overall travel activity was not back to the time before Covid. But the interesting presentations and personal discussions confirmed again the need of this event. Also, the common dinner in the restaurant UFO above the river Danube gave opportunities for the face-to-face discussions after the long Covid related business culture.
Unfortunately, the board of directors of Tappi decided in Summer 2022 a Moratorium to refocus on events only in USA/Canada. So, the Conference in Bratislava was the last one under the umbrella of the Tappi organisation.
2021 – First Virtual PLACE Event
Virtual Webinar
Due to the Covid 19 pandemic there was no option to hold a conference in this year.
Günter Schubert organized the ”European PLACE free virtual conference” on 19. October to keep in contact, where around 130 people dialed in.
2019 – Porto, Portugal
Porto
From 20.-22. May the Crown Plaza Hotel was “the place to be” for 94 attendees of the “17th TAPPI European PLACE Conference” again organised by Bernhard Fehr.
In the Arabic room of the historic building of the Palacio da Bolsa the common dinner took place, to allow good communication with all attendees, including the newcomers.
2017 – Basel, Switzerland
Basel
Again, Bernhard Fehr organised the “16th TAPPI European PLACE Conference” for 111 attendees in Basel from 22.24. May. The traditional evening event took place at Bottmingen Castle, where the attendees could discuss further after the interesting presentations. The communication beside the official presentations was again an important part of the conference.
2015 – Nice, France
Nice
124 people came from 11.-13. May to Nice for the “15th TAPPI European PLACE Conference”. The very short distance from the airport o the conference Hotel was an advantage and gave a lot of time in nice surrounding for the presentations and personal discussions. Bernhard Fehr organised the conference and the French evening with a Petanque competition at Chez Simon as multiple sponsored evening event.
On Wednesday afternoon a tour at the facilities from the CEMEF was done, where the melt flow through a feed block with a Saphir glass window could be seen beside many other laboratories.
2013 – Dresden, Germany
Dresden
In the brand-new Swiss-Hotel in Dresden from 6. to 8. May the “14th TAPPI European PLACE Conference” hosted 125 attendees. The evening event at the Ballhaus Watzke allowed networking beside good food, some drinks and music. It was the last conference organised by Charly Zürcher before his retirement.
After the conference the Fraunhofer AVV institute in Dresden was visited and a tour through the laboratories demonstrated the competence of this institute.
2011 – Bregenz, Austria
Bregenz
From 30. May to 1. June the “13th TAPPI European PLACE Conference” took place in the Festspielhaus in Bregenz, a different location to all previous conferences, as the audience had the view to the stage over the lake of Konstanz, organized by Charly Zürcher. The audience listened to interesting presentations and enjoyed the Apéro Cruise on the steam paddle-steamer “Hohentwiel”, followed by dinner in the Festspielhaus.
By invitation from STI Hartchrom AG in Steinach, a factory tour and partner program took place on the Wednesday afternoon with a historic bus.
Even without a common conference Hotel, the location of Bregenz was well appreciated by the audience of 164 people.
2009 – Budapest, Hungary
Budapest
After the economic crisis in 2008 even 132 people came from 18.-20. May to Budapest for the ”TAPPI 12th European PLACE Conference”, again organised by Charly Zürcher. The Corinthia Hotel was a nice location, but many attendees decided to use other hotels in the near surrounding to reduce the total travel costs. By coaches the full audience reached a nice Hungarian session with horse riding demonstration. Again, a multiple sponsored evening event; where Charly Zürcher introduced the “seat lottery”, to maximise the communication on the tables during dinner, a new and well appreciated way of networking.
2007 – Athens, Greece
Athens
From 14.-16. May 150 people came to Athens for the “11th TAPPI European PLACE Conference” with now Charly Zürcher as Conference Chairman. A Greek evening on a beach location continued the well established multiple sponsored evening event for all attendees to establish the so-called coating family.
2005 – Vienna, Austria
Vienna
Based on the experience from Rome the time slot per presentation in Vienna was set to 30 minutes and parallel sessions were introduced to have more presentations. 201 people attendees the “10th TAPPI European PLACE Conference” from 23.-25. May and enjoyed the first multiple sponsored evening event at Palais Ferstel, organized by Otto Plassmann. It was the 3rd time that the conference has a bit more than 200 attendees.
2003 – Rome, Italy
Rome
From 12.-14 May Rome was the location for the “Tappi 9th European PLACE Conference” with Otto Plassmann as Conference Chairman. Based on the high number of presentations the time slot per paper was set to 20 minutes, to keep the single session mode. The learning from these too short time slots was clear and the 30 minutes slot including 5 minutes for questions and change of the equipment was selected for the next events. All 215 attendees were invited by BP Chemical to the common evening event at Villa Miani on the hill behind the Vatican with a wonderful view over the historic Rome. It was the first time that all attendees had a common evening with a lot of opportunities of networking, especially integrating all the newcomers.
2001 – Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona
The “8th European Polymers, Films, laminations and extrusion coatings conference” has held on 28.-30. May in Barcelona under the organisation of Erkki Laiho. With the unexpected high number of 201 attendees, the borderline for the conference facilities and the organisation was reached. An interesting plant tour at Comexi, followed by delicious Spanish evening (and night) completed the event in Barcelona. After a long Tappi internal discussion the European Tappi Events were from Barcelona onwards allowed to be named conference, as Tappi had strict guidelines on the name of an event in these days.
1999 – Copenhagen, Denmark
1999 – Prague, Czech Republic
Copenhagen & Prague – establishing the biennial event in late May and in English language
Ion Postoaca was the next organizer in 1999 and the sixth European Polymers, Laminations, & Coating Symposium took place in the Hotel D’Angleterre in Copenhagen from 6.-7. June with 138 attendees. The “Tappi family” lost Dragan Djordjevic as key supporter when he passed away on his trip from USA to Copenhagen.
In the same year Ion Postoaca organized also the “TAPPI’S 7th European PLC Symposium” in Prague on 15.-17. November. There was a simultaneous translation to the Czech language, to be more attractive for east European attendees and even 74 people attended this second conference in the same year. It was now confirmed that the conference language would be “English only” for the following conferences, as the high workload and cost for a second language did not bring more attendees. It was also decided to keep the biennial mode and to move the event to late May.
1997 – Düsseldorf, Germany
Düsseldorf – European PLC Conference & Short Course
A multiple 3-day event was organized by Dragan Djordjevic and Erkki Laiho again in Düsseldorf on 3.-5. November. 2 short-courses in English and German language and a conference in English. It was very visible that the German speaking audience was too small, to justify future events in German, especially as most of the literature was in English. In total 110 people attended the “1997 European Polymer, Film and Coating Conference & Short Course“.
1996 – Tampere, Finland
1996 – Birmingham, United Kingdom
Tampere & Birmingham –
110 people visited the “Scandinavian Extrusion Coating, and Cast Film Seminar” in Tampere, Finland from 4.-6. June. This was organized by Erkki Laiho. The sessions were held in the facilities of the TUT University of Tampere and the pilot coextrusion coating line was visited after the last session. It was the first time that there was no conference Hotel, but due to the short distances, it was accepted.
On 6.-7. November the second event in 1996 took place in Birmingham. This “UK Extrusion Coating, Cast & Blown Film Seminar”, organized by Philipp Shearman, had 60 attendees.
1995 – Düsseldorf, Germany
Düsseldorf – the birth of a European Committee under the umbrealla of Tappi PLACE division
On 23.-24. May 106 people attended the “1995 TAPPI European Film, Extrusion Coating, and Coextrusion Symposium” at the Hilton Hotel. Dragan Djordjevic organized this event. Due to a custom clearance problem the conference books did not arrive on time and the Hotels conference area, was a bit overloaded, due to the unexpected jump in attendees from 44 in Geneva to the 106 in Düsseldorf. This was the clear sign for the need of such an event for the extrusion coating and converting industry. During the post-conference meeting on 24. May the core team members founded the “European Adhoc Committee”. This was the beginning of the conference organisation by the European Committee with the financial backbone of the Tappi PLACE division.
1993 – Geneva, Switzerland
1993 – Geneva
From 19.-21. October the “1993 TAPPI European Film, Extrusion Coating & Coextrusion Symposium” took place in the Hotel Intercontinental in Geneva. 44 attendees listened to interesting presentations, followed by a tour through the DuPont laboratories in Meyrin, close to the Geneva Airport. After the conference a factory tour at Polytype in Fribourg was facilitated, with the demonstration of several pilot lines. Tom Bezigian was again the organizer with the support of the US PLACE division.
1991 – Düsseldorf, Germany
PLACE is born
The European PLACE conference is born and held for the first time in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The first event was from 11.-13. June at the Hotel Intercontinental in Düsseldorf. By initiative from Tom Bezigian under the umbrella of the US PLACE division this event, the “1991 TAPPI Extrusion Coating Seminar” was organized, and 55 attendees confirmed the interest of the converting industry on such a new event, as the last Tappi activities have been in the 70ies. Dragan Djordjevic from ER-WE-PA was the main speaker.