The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : “More than a place for buying, selling”

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Thursday, May 29, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

“More than a place for buying, selling”

Shonali Muthalaly

5-day Metro Plus Lifestyle show from June 5

— Photo: K. V. Srinivasan

(From left) C Haridas of Voltas, Shubhodip Pal of HP Compaq, V L Narayan of Samsung India Limited, V. Kalidas, Vice President (Advertisement) of The Hindu, T Ayyappan, of JMDC, Pankaj Prabhakar of Maruti Udyog Limited and Shankar Ramachandran of Moser Baer at the media conference for Lifestyle Show in Chennai on Wednesay.

CHENNAI: It’s not an exhibition. It’s not a trade fair. In fact, it’s rather difficult to slot. However, since it draws about 80,000 visitors a year, no one’s really worrying too much about definitions.

The Metro Plus Lifestyle show, which will be on at the Chennai Trade Centre between June 5 and 9, is rapidly developing into a platform for the country’s largest companies to launch their new products.

“It’s more than just a place for buying and selling,” says V. Kalidas, Vice President (Advertisement) of The Hindu, adding that the show brings together the newspaper’s readers and manufacturers. “Visitors come in and do much more than window shopping. They interact with the manufacturer.”

At a press conference at Taj Coromandel, representatives from various companies that are participating in the festival spoke about what customers can expect from this edition.

Launches

A lot of launches can be expected to start with. V. L Narayan from Samsung, which is the main sponsor of the event, said that they will be using the festival to showcase their new crystal design LCD TVs, among other products. There will also be individualised notebooks from HP Compaq, in bright colours, patterns and their signature imprint finish, and Moser Baer with a range of new products for your computer.

Maruti Udyog Limited will unveil a new car and Voltas has a new range of air conditioners, water coolers and wine coolers. And helping the environment, there will be JMDC, which has been tirelessly popularising jute and making it trendy.

The show is in its 5th year and has grown vastly since it began in Chennai in 2004. It grew to three cities in 2005, and nine cities in 2007.

This edition goes international, bringing together Thai jewellery, textiles and handicrafts, along with representatives from Pakistan and Kenya.

There will be a total of 285 stalls, covering an air conditioned area of 12,000 sq metres. The communication partner is Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited. Other partners include K Lite, Aquafina, Lakme beauty Salon and League Club. Planet Yumm will be setting up a food court at the show. NDTV 24x7 is the Channel Partner, while Radio One 94.3 FM is the Radio partner. Taj Coromandel is the hospitality partner.

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