Figures from the Stone+tec exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany, at the end of May confirm that the number of visitors, as well as exhibitors, was down this year.

As reported in last month\'s NSS, the number of exhibitors was down for the first time in the show\'s 20-year history. Now the figures confirm that the number of visitors also fell - by almost 6,000 to 40,199. It is the third time in succession that the number of visitors has fallen.

Nevertheless, Walter Hufnagel, part of the management board of the Nuremberg exhibition centre, says: "Stone+tec has positively surprised us all." The reason they are pleased, he says, is because expectations were so low in the light of the German economy and SARS hysteria.