Following a fall in the number of both exhibitors and visitors at the German Stone+tec exhibition last year, the organisers have decided to change the dates of the next event in 2005. It will take place 25-28 May.

Stone+tec in Nuremberg is held every other year and had become Europe\'s biggest stone show, but each of the last three shows has seen a fall in the number of visitors and for the first time in its 20-year history last year it also saw a fall in the number of exhibitors.

So N¸rnbergMesse, who run the show, have decided to change the dates to move it away from Ascension Day, which is a bank holiday in Germany, and to run the show from Wednesday to Saturday rather than Thursday to Sunday.

The holidays were included to boost the attendance figures because the public are allowed into Stone+tec and Sunday was traditionally family day.

When the Germans started the exhibition it was a parochial affair at which foreigners were not allowed to exhibit. But when the doors were opened to foreigners the show expanded rapidly as the rest of the World chased the mighty Deutschmark. But with the Germans now using the Euro and the country\'s economy performing badly, Nuremberg is no longer the attraction it once was.

Figures from Stone+tec, which was held at the end of May last year, show a fall of 7% in the number of exhibitors - although that still left 1,172 of them. The number of visitors fell 12% - by almost 6,000 to just over 40,000. At its height, the visitor figures topped 50,000.

According to a survey conducted during the exhibition last year, only 16% of the exhibitors and 21 % of the visitors expected the stone market in Germany to improve this year and more than half expect it to continue to weaken.