The fourth Texprocess, leading international trade fair for processing textile and flexible materials, to take place from May 9 to 12 some four months before the start has reported the highest number of registrations in its history and thus continues its pattern of growth. Even more floor space has been booked than the previous edition had in total.

With this fourth edition, Texprocess is now firmly established in the marketplace and is attracting other market leaders in the sector to Frankfurt. The range of products at Texprocess covers all stages in the value-creation chain for textile goods, from design, IT, cutting out, sewing, seaming, embroidery and knitting to finishing, textile printing and logistics.

Texprocess reports growing numbers of companies signing up, particularly in the CAD/CAM and Cutting, Making, Trimming (CMT) product groups. Technologies and material for Sewing, Joining and Fastening are growing steadily, too.

Among the companies that have already signed up are: Amann, Astas, assyst/Human Solutions, Barudan, Brother, bullmer, Caron Technology, Dürkopp Adler, Epson, Filiz Makina, Gemini CAD Systems, Gerber Technology, Gütermann, Juki, Kuris Spezialmaschinen, MACPI, Malkan, Mitsubishi, Morgan Tecnica, Pfaff, Serkon Tekstil Makina, SMRE, Strima, Tajima, Teseo, Tetas, Veit, Zünd.

To make the profiles of Techtextil and Texprocess even sharper, the bonding and separating technology, CMT (Cutting, Making, Trimming), CAD/CAM and printing product segments will be concentrated together at Texprocess in hall 4.0. Thus, visitors will find Techtextil exhibitors from these segments at Texprocess. These product groups will be deleted from the Techtextil nomenclature.

Apart from this change, the overall concept behind the halls at the previous event will be retained: trade visitors will find Design, IT, CAD/CAM, CMT and Printing, as well as the special IT@Texprocess section in hall 4.0. Exhibitors of machines and accessories for sewing and seaming will be presenting their products in hall 5.0 and 5.1; and hall 6.0 will showcase embroidery technology, together with finishing techniques and logistics for textiles.

Both exhibitors and visitors at Texprocess will, this year, have the benefit of a rather special experience at the show: under the heading Living in Space, Techtextil will be showcasing the wide variety of applications for technical textiles in space travel, together with the processing involved.

This is a cooperative venture between Techtextil, The European Space Agency (ESA) and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). Close to the location for, amongst others, exhibitors of functional apparel textiles in Hall 6.1, and based on the areas of application for technical textiles, a special, interactive area is to be built to display, with the help of four thematic sections, the high-tech textiles and textile processing technologies that have emerged from and for space travel.

The highlight of this area is a virtual-reality experience in which visitors to Techtextil and Texprocess get to go on a virtual journey through the universe, where they will learn about the application of technical textiles in space travel and the processing required to make them.

Digital Printing will be one the thematic focusses of the Texprocess complimentary programme. The sector's information service, the World Textile Information Network (WtiN) will, for the first time, be organising the European Digital Textile Conference at Texprocess.

And digital printing on textiles will also be taken up as a topic in a dedicated series of lectures forming part of the Texprocess Forum. The forum offers expert lectures on current issues in the sector, on all days of the trade fair. For the first time, the programme will have been designed jointly by three partners: the Dialog Textil-Bekleidung (DTB), die International Apparel Federation (IAF) and the World Textile Information Network (WTiN).

With the Texprocess Innovation Award, Messe Frankfurt seeks, for the fourth time, to honour the best new technological developments in the field. Submissions for the award may be made up until 20 February. The competition is open both to exhibitors at Texprocess 2017 and to other companies, institutes, universities, colleges and private individuals, who are not otherwise exhibiting at the fair.

The awards in the various categories will be presented during the joint opening ceremony for Texprocess und Techtextil, on 9 May 2017. At the same time, there will be a special display area, showcasing all the prize-winning products at Texprocess.

Following on from the success of its first edition, the Innovative Apparel Show is to be continued and set on an international footing. For the first time, there will be, a German university, three European universities/colleges from outside Germany, showcasing, their fashion designs from functional textiles and the processing stages that go into making them.