KUTENO 2026 takes place from 9 to 11 June at the Messezentrum Bad Salzuflen. Organized by Easyfairs, the fair brings together suppliers and decision-makers from across the plastics processing industry for three days of expert dialogue, product demonstrations, and professional networking.
The 2025 edition attracted 4,740 trade visitors and 380 exhibitors at KUTENO alone (476 combined with the co-located KPA fair). According to the organizers, 95% of exhibitors rated the atmosphere as good or very good, and visitors gave the fair a recommendation score of 8.8 out of 10. For 2026, over 300 exhibitors have already registered.
For companies attending, the three days represent a concentrated opportunity to meet buyers, partners, and prospects, and often the largest density of relevant contacts they will encounter all year.
The Problem with Paper Business Cards at Industrial Fairs
Most exhibitors arrive at KUTENO with stacks of printed business cards. Over three days, those cards get distributed across hundreds of conversations. Some contacts will follow up. Most will not.
The reasons are familiar: a paper card provides no confirmation that an exchange actually happened, no way to track who received it, and no mechanism to follow up efficiently. A prospect who received your card at a trade fair stand three weeks ago is difficult to trace. A card sitting in a coat pocket is not a lead. It is a piece of paper.
Research consistently shows that the majority of trade fair leads are not followed up within the first week. In a B2B sales environment where relationships drive decisions, and where plastics processing sales cycles can run for months, that delay is costly.
The problem is not effort. It is process. Paper cards create friction at every stage of post-fair follow-up.
How Digital Business Cards Work at KUTENO
A digital business card eliminates the paper entirely. Instead of handing out a printed card, an exhibitor shares a QR code printed on a badge, displayed on a tablet, or accessed directly from a smartphone or Apple/Google Wallet. The visitor scans it, views the full profile, and saves the contact in one tap.
The exchange can also work both ways. With CARTLY’s contact exchange feature, the visitor can share their own information directly from the card. The exhibitor receives that information as a notification, and the contact is available in their account immediately, with no manual entry required.
After the fair, all collected contacts can be exported to CSV, VCF, or Excel, or pushed directly into a CRM. The data is structured, complete, and ready to work with.
Features Relevant to Exhibitors at KUTENO
KUTENO is a team event. Most companies attend with several colleagues managing a stand over multiple days. CARTLY’s Business plan is designed for exactly this scenario.
From a single admin account, a company can manage cards for all team members, assign consistent branding, and control which fields each user can edit. If the sales director wants every card to display the company’s trade fair landing page for June, that change takes minutes and applies across the entire team.
Key features for exhibiting teams:
- Centralized card management for all team members from one admin account
- QR code sharing via badge, tablet, smartphone, or Apple/Google Wallet
- Two-way contact exchange to collect visitor details without manual entry
- Per-user engagement statistics: profile views, QR scans, contact exchanges, link clicks
- Post-fair CRM export in CSV, VCF, or Excel format
During the fair, each team member’s card tracks its own engagement: profile views, QR code scans, contact exchanges, and link clicks. After the fair, account-level statistics give a clear picture of overall performance, including which team members generated the most contacts, which days had the highest engagement, and which channels visitors clicked through to.
For companies attending KUTENO with multiple people, this level of visibility is difficult to achieve with printed cards.
Why KUTENO Specifically
KUTENO is positioned as a working fair, not a showcase. The official positioning emphasizes short distances, compact format, and direct access to decision-makers. The organizers describe it as a place where project managers with specific procurement needs visit to have technical conversations.
That audience profile has practical implications for first contact quality. Visitors at KUTENO are not browsing. They are there to evaluate suppliers and advance projects. The quality of the initial impression and the ease of follow-up contact directly affects whether a conversation becomes a business relationship.
In that context, a digital business card does more than replace paper. It confirms the exchange happened, captures the contact’s details, and makes it straightforward to follow up with the right person, from the right team member, with accurate contact information.
Start Before the Fair Opens
CARTLY offers a free 30-day trial that covers all Pro features. For companies attending with a team, the Business plan includes centralized card management, team segmentation, and CRM export.
Setting up cards before KUTENO takes less time than printing them, and the information can be updated at any point, including during the fair itself.
Start your free trial today or explore Business plans.