PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2019

JUBILEE PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 06/19 www.petpla.net 36 The entry into Azerbaijan itself was then the strangest of all. We were eventually allowed to enter only after a detailed conversation with a senior state official, who was based at a militarytype command centre at the Georgia-Azerbaijan border. There were three of us on board the Editour- mobil at the time and, after some- thing between a coffee party and an interrogation, we were finally allowed into the country – and without even having to pay the normal deposit fee of $ 20,000. At the tour’s climax in Baku, Azer- baijan’s capital, we contrived some- thing of a PR coup when we met Ell, from the music duo Ell & Nikki. They had just won the Eurovision Song Contest, in front of an audience of millions, so we interviewed him and asked, among other things, about his drink preference in PET. Overall, the flexibility of driving across land paid off. The tour was a complete success in terms of its flow and content. The response from the drinks and machine building industry was positive. When the articles began to be published, even the most die- hard doubters were finally convinced. The rest is history This, the first big tour, was worked out sensibly and in detail, in terms of marketing and planning. When it was over, the reports and interviews with the many companies we met along the way transmitted successively into PETplanet Insider, it became clear that we had achieved a brilliant level of reach and influence. We decided then that the “Editours” should be an annual event, and so we generated a permanent new brand and section within PETplanet. Meeting Husky Injection Molding Sys- tems Russia, 2012 While all the material from the Azerbaijan tour was still making its way into the public domain, we were already planning the next project. With the support of Brau Beviale once more, we headed East again in 2012, to Poland, Russia and Ukraine. In the middle of the year, we set off from Nuremberg and took the Editourmobil by ferry from Lübeck to St. Peters- burg, from where we slowly made our way to Moscow and then further on towards the Urals. Ukraine and Poland were visited on the way back. In addition to Alexander Büchler and me, our freelancer editors Walde- mar Schmitke and Michael Maruschke were also on board with us for the first time, as well as our technology specialist, Felix Popp. The tour was less nerve-wracking overall, although it was accompanied by a political discussion of the Russian govern- ment that had already been running for years, regarding a ban on alcohol in PET bottles. This became a recur- rent topic in nearly all conversations. The entire beer industry was heav- ily affected by the unclear develop- ment since, at that time, around half of all beers available in Russia were already bottled in PET. However, shortly before we published our gen- eral market overview in PETplanet Insider, it was revealed that the law had, in fact, been overturned. The tours become more challenging, the destinations more exotic The Editourmobil being obversed by an ostrich in Brasil, 2013 2013 was a Drinktec year. The world-leading fair needed a corre- spondingly splendid tour concept. With the Munich Trade Fair and Drinktec boss Petra Westphal as tour partners, we put together an extensive concept and decided on South Amer- ica as the destination for that year. We took the Editourmobil to Uruguay by ship and then travelled through a total of six countries, over a period of 14 weeks. We also scaled our highest altitude up till that time; approximately 4,600m, on the route from Lima to La Paz. On top of the theft of a solar panel in Brazil, which we had installed on the vehicle to charge the interior bat- tery, the overland trip along extremely narrow and insecure roads, combined with the thin mountain air of the Andes was, at least for Editor-in-Chief Alex Büchler, anything but bearable. Rolf Sinkovec had emerged as a fearless driver on extensive parts of the western tour sections and always drove the Editour baby safely from appointment to appointment. When I took over driving responsi- bilities in Santiago de Chile, the vehi- cle instantaneously and definitively gave out. As a result, the traditional road show had to give way to various taxi rides and flights. The Andes leg of the tour was, altogether, too much for our other- wise completely reliable and faithful vehicle, which was designed more for European road conditions. After this mandatory pause for the Editourmobil, another team of editors continued the journey later, with a repaired engine and only the loss of that solar panel to complain about. In addition to our familiar allrounders, guest editor Florian Roschek – called THE Roschek – was also on board. The stand at Drinktec after the tour was, just like the road show itself, spectacular in design and size and left a consistently positive impression in the industry. New trade fair partnerships emerge After Drinktec and before the next tour began, contact developed with SPI (now the Plastics Industry Associ- ation), organisers of NPE in Orlando, North America’s largest plastics trade fair. A few weeks, contacts and per- sonal meetings later, it was settled: PETplanet’s 2015 road show would