The largest technology event in the Benelux moves from Utrecht to Amsterdam. HET Instrument will be organised in the RAI in Amsterdam in 2010, 2012 and 2014. FHI, Federation of Technology Branches that organises the event, signed an agreement to this effect with the management of Amsterdam RAI on 11 September at FHI’s office in Leusden.

This move away from Utrecht marks the end of a twenty-year period during which FHI held ten editions of their fair in the Jaarbeurs Utrecht. Because the first edition of the event also took place in Amsterdam in 1956, the move means that this internationally acclaimed event has returned to its point of origin. HET Instrument 2010 consists of three sub-exhibitions for industrial electronics, industrial automation and laboratory technology. More than five hundred leading companies participate in HET Instrument. Together, they attract between fifteen and twenty thousand highly educated visitors, the knowledge workers in the technology sector.

Scheduling problems in Utrecht have prompted the move to Amsterdam. Jaarbeurs Utrecht was unable to satisfy FHI’s desire to hold the exhibition in the early autumn. In addition to the fact that the exhibition week that has now been planned, from 28 September to 1 October inclusive, is favourable for FHI and the technology companies it represents, the federation expects that the choice of Amsterdam as the exhibition location will give HET Instrument greater international allure and stimulate further growth.

Of the grand total of eight hundred and fifty affiliated companies that are active in the four sectors represented by FHI, approximately five hundred and twenty participate in HET Instrument. The total turnover generated by FHI affiliate companies amounts to more than six and a half billion euros. HET Instrument 2010 is expected to attract approximately eighteen thousand professional visitors, of which around eighty percent hold higher vocational education or academic qualifications. These statistics make HET Instrument by far the largest technology event in the Benelux.


For further information please visit www.hetinstrument.nl/2010/en