The Grand Tour’s European origins
The Atomium is a stainless steel modernist landmark in Brussels, originally built for Expo 58 or the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. The atom structures that make up the landmark celebrate technical and scientific progress. Image: Pexels
We’re heading to Europe for CanTech the Grand Tour 2025, and, although this is the first time the event has been held in this region, it was part of its origins.
Prior to 2019, you may have visited or heard of Euro CanTech – the last edition was in 2018 in Milan, Italy. This event was rebranded and CanTech the Grand Tour was born.
“We highly valued the success of our past Euro CanTech show, but we wanted to broaden our geographical horizons, separate to the always popular Asia CanTech conference and awards,” said conference director, Neil McRitchie.
The branding of the event used the popular UK TV show, Top Gear, as its inspiration, but coincidentally, ‘Grand Tour’ used to be a term in the 18th century that related to young men from wealthy families travelling around Europe, taking in the culture and the sights on the way.
While the event has been held in India twice now (New Delhi, 2019, and Mumbai, 2024), we’re delighted to be finally taking it back to Europe, after a few years’ hiatus due to Covid-19 restrictions and then Metpack taking the European stage (rightly so).
Belgium, the 2025 location, provides CanTech the Grand Tour with a mighty strong foothold in the European metal packaging industry, with many can makers and decision-makers nearby.
The show will follow much the same format you will be familiar with, with fresh ideas and content. Day one will be dedicated to registration, exhibition set-up and presentation rehearsals for our conference speakers. Day two will see the start of the conference, the exhibition hall will open, and winning can makers of CanTech the Grand Tour Awards will be honoured during the gala dinner. Day three will see the conclusion of the conference.
As always, we’re dedicated to providing you with optimal opportunities to promote your business, either as a can maker or supplier, and aim to engage visitors with a varied conference programme, focusing on both two- and three-piece, food, beverage and aerosol cans. There’s much to explore and discuss, so we hope you can join us.
Our events coordinator, Aimee Carnell, is always working hard behind the scenes to help in making each of our events better every year, and she will be more than happy to accommodate any queries and help make your experience with our shows as smooth and successful as possible.
Now to end this blog with Bell Publishing team news. We’re happy to have welcomed back our art designer, Hannah Walsh, from maternity leave, and equally sad to announce that our digital editor, Marry Barron, has left the company on other pursuits. We wish her all the very best, and now welcome Inês Couthino to the team!
Having started at Bell in the role of digital editor myself, I’m precious with who fills the boots, and have great confidence in Inês to continue growing our presence through subscriptions, emails and social media marketing. Please add her email, [email protected], to your circulation lists for press releases/company news and updates!
- Alex Rivers (she/her), CanTech International editor
Keep in touch via email: [email protected] Twitter: @CanTechIntl or LinkedIn: CanTech International magazine
