Tarsus large biennials – Dubai Airshow and Labelexpo Europe - both run in odd years.

“An integral part of our strategy for organic growth is to invest in and expand our leading brands globally through our growing launch programme. We are delighted by the performance of the first edition of Labelexpo Southeast Asia, demonstrating the strength of the Labelexpo brand,” said Tarsus Group managing director Douglas Emslie.

He added, “We have traded well in the first half, forward bookings are well up and we remain confident of delivering a strong performance in 2018 in line with the Board’s expectations.”

This year has seen the launch of the next phase of the Quickening the Pace strategy - "QTP2: driving scale and momentum", a program that builds on the original QTP strategy. 

The Group will deepen its presence in higher growth markets, look to maximise the scale of existing events and acquire new platforms for growth with the aim of continuing to drive strong shareholder returns.

Some first-half highlights include in China performance was strong and the Shenzhen events all performed well – in particular Hometex.

Labelexpo Southeast Asia, held in Bangkok in May was one of the group’s most successful launches ever, attracting nearly 8,000 attendees from 62 countries.

In the Americas, Connect held 13 events that were in live with expectations, the medical division also is performing in line and had a launch of the Cardiometabolic West event and the February Offprice edition also performed well.

In Mexico, trading was positive with another strong performance from Expo Manufactura.