I’ve been attending IMTS since 2000 and thus have witnessed both highs and lows in terms of business projections as well as moods. With the first part of this year holding strong, I went into this year’s show with great interest - would the industry reflect the growing fear and pessimism of the news reporting, or show the strength of key growth industries as I have seen with my clients and associates within the supplier side of the metalworking industry. The experience was decidedly positive. Show attendance was strong, but more importantly, sales and interest in high-performance and high-ticket products were very strong. I’ll look at the post show statistics and report further, but almost without exception, the reports were solid. Let’s keep driving forward and prove the skeptics wrong.