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Triumphant Conclusion: The 32nd China (Guzhen) International Lighting Fair Welcomes Over 220,000 Visits, Marking a New Chapter

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ZHONGSHAN, China, March 26, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — As spring arrived, businesses converged in force, eager to illuminate the path forward. The 32nd China (Guzhen) International Lighting Fair (GILF) wrapped up its successful four-day run on March 21st. As a premier exhibition and trade platform seamlessly integrating online and offline resources across the entire lighting industry, this year’s fair brought together a wealth of leading brands from the industry’s manufacturing sector, garnering widespread attention and participation from buyers worldwide. The fair underscored Guzhen’s pivotal role in driving industrial advancements, injecting fresh confidence and impetus into the high-quality growth of the lighting and decorative fixtures sector.

With the theme “Guzhen Lights Up the World,” this year’s exhibition championed a professional, market-driven, and international ethos. This fair brought together over 3,500 premier brands and unveiled an impressive array of more than 100,000 original and innovative products. The Guzhen Convention and Exhibition Center, serving as the main venue, partnered with eight major professional lighting marketplaces across the town. Together, they forged a magnificent exhibition landscape spanning over 1.5 million ㎡ – a “1+8+N” framework that truly embodies the scale and impact of this Fair.

As of 2:00 PM on March 21st, the 32nd Guzhen Lighting Fair’s main venue had already welcomed an impressive 107,307 visits. This figure included 102,273 domestic visits and 5,034 international visits representing 120 countries and regions around the globe. The number of international visitors increased by 16.10% compared to the Spring 2024 Edition. Additionally, the eight sub-venues recorded nearly 120,000 visitor visits, bringing the total visitors across all nine venues to over 220,000 visits.

A broad network of over 150 outlets, including industry-specific media, mainstream news agencies, and new media content creators converged to provide comprehensive, multi-angle coverage of the 32nd Guzhen Lighting Fair. Employing a blend of multimedia formats—including in-depth articles, live reports directly from exhibitor booths, and engaging short-form documentary videos—they showcased the event in panoramic detail. On the exhibitor side, targeted marketing proved effective in promoting new products and expanding channels, while buyers expertly navigated a diverse array of offerings and distinctive booths, seamlessly connecting with top-tier supply chain resources.

The recent fair was a resounding success, buzzing with energy and facilitating significant business and trade. Exhibitors and buyers alike expressed their satisfaction, pointing out that the event exceeded their expectations. The positive momentum is set to continue, as many participants are already looking forward to two upcoming events: the 2025 Guzhen Outdoor Lighting Expo and the Zhongshan Summer Coffee Lifestyle Festival in May, followed by the 33rd China (Guzhen) International Lighting Fair in October.

Expanding into Emerging Industries: Over 3 Billion Yuan in Intelligent Manufacturing Projects Signed

Fueled by technological innovation and breakthroughs in emerging sectors, Guzhen Town is building a new economic landscape, targeting a trillion-yuan industrial sector. This transformation was highlighted at the opening ceremony on March 18th, where 22 key projects in intelligent manufacturing and innovation were announced, bringing with them over 3 billion yuan in investment.

The signing of AI technology application platform and low-altitude economy projects is particularly noteworthy, demonstrating Guzhen’s strategic vision in emerging industries. By fostering a complete ecosystem that integrates intelligent R&D, smart manufacturing, and advanced services, Guzhen is transforming its traditional lighting industry from one driven by “cost competition” to a new era of “technology iteration” and “smart empowerment”.

A Grand Event for the Entire Industry Chain: New Upgrades + Grand Vision

The main venue, the Guzhen Convention and Exhibition Center, covered a vast 58,000 square meters and welcomed 1,040 exhibiting companies. According to official data, 61.9% of exhibitors traveled from outside Guzhen, highlighting the event’s powerful draw as a national trading platform. Notably, over 50 Shenzhen-based companies exhibited collectively, reflecting the deepening connections within the Shenzhen-Zhongshan industrial chain and the exciting momentum coming from the Greater Bay Area.

The main venue achieved full industry chain coverage, showcasing a wide range of exhibits, including smart lighting, decorative lighting, residential lighting, commercial lighting, cultural tourism lighting, specialized lighting, machinery and equipment, and accessories. This perfectly embodied the new ecosystem of “new industry technologies, innovative exhibition and trade formats, and cross-sector collaborations.” The exhibition hall buzzed with high business activity, with professional buyers continuously visiting brand booths and frequent interactions in the negotiation zones. These scenes vividly demonstrated Guzhen’s core position in the global lighting industry and its ongoing ability to unlock new production potential.

AI-Powered Lighting: Innovation and Original Design Take Center Stage

The fair this year demonstrated a clear transformation, with products advancing beyond simple functional lighting to incorporate a comprehensive upgrade through the integration of AI and original designs.

Exhibiting companies forged their key advantages through differentiation strategies. Vertically, they specialized in niche markets and established strong technical barriers, while horizontally, they broadened the scope of application, creating lighting solutions for a wide variety of spaces. For example, many companies seamlessly integrated lighting innovations with AIoT (Artificial Intelligence of Things), enabling smooth connectivity with platforms such as Xiaomi, Baidu, Tuya, Huawei, Bluetooth, and 2.4G. They also expanded their product lines to include whole-home smart lighting solutions, full-spectrum eye protection environments, emotional lighting experiences, smart security systems, and smart cities. This demonstrates the rapid upgrade cycle in the lighting industry.

Many companies prioritized “breakthrough products, using a “cutting-edge strategy and technological innovation” approach to effectively capture the attention of numerous buyers. At the event, it was evident that brands were shifting away from being “broad and all-encompassing” and instead emphasizing “specialized, refined, and innovative” competitive advantages.

In addition, the Zhongshan Lighting Intellectual Property Protection Center was invited to establish a legal aid station at the event, providing exhibitors with one-stop, comprehensive intellectual property protection services. A ceramic lighting zone was also introduced, elegantly blending the unique material of ceramics with lighting, highlighting its artistic appeal and underscoring the fair’s strong commitment to original design.

Round-the-Clock Online and Offline Experience: Thought Exchange + Event Wave

Throughout the exhibition, the main and sub-venues worked together seamlessly to create a dynamic hub offering “Forum Summits, Business Matching, Order Promotion, and Consumer Engagement.”

A major highlight was the launch ceremony of the Guangdong Province “Cross-Border E-Commerce + Industrial Belt” initiative. This initiative, hosted by the Provincial Department of Commerce, was designed to boost the “Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Project” and marked the start of the dedicated month for Zhongshan Guzhen Lighting & Decoration Products. The event encouraged more companies to explore the growing opportunities in cross-border e-commerce, fostering valuable communication and resource sharing. The initiative received widespread acclaim from manufacturers and attendees alike.

The main venue hosted a series of high-level forums, including: “Optical-Intelligent Integration for Dual Carbon Practices – 2025 Lighting Industry New Product Release And Green Development Exchange Conference,” “AI Empowering High-Quality Development in the Lighting & Decoration Industry Forum,” and “Lighting Goes Global: Targeting Southeast Asia – 2025 Zhongshan Lighting Industry Cross-Border E-Commerce Resource Matchmaking Forum.

Global e-commerce giants like TikTok Shop, Shopee, and Alibaba, as well as authoritative organizations and leading companies such as the China Household Electrical Appliance Association, Hangzhou Honyar Electrical Co., Ltd., Foshan Electrical and Lighting Co.,Ltd, TeleAI, Tuya Smart, MLS, and YD Illumination Co., Ltd, joined experts, scholars, and industry elites at the event, creating a rich and insightful “Smart Conference”.

Meanwhile, the sub-venues buzzed with exciting activities, including Lihe Lighting Expo Center’s “2025 New Product Procurement Season”, Starlight Alliance’s “2025 Spring Lighting Expo”, and Huayi Plaza’s “International Lighting Design Week”, drawing significant interest from business visitors. Business was also thriving at sub-venues like Guyi Ruifeng International Lighting Fittings City, Guyi Qingfeng LED Lighting Trading City, Lighting Era Center, Caosan International Lighting Parts City, and Guzhen Chang’an Lighting Parts & Electronic City, gathering a large number of clients and injecting vibrant commercial energy into Guzhen as spring began.

Throughout the exhibition, several Grade-A tourist attractions and major shopping centers in Guzhen offered a variety of unique cultural and leisure experiences. Visitors could explore lighting exhibits, enjoy intangible cultural heritage performances, and taste local Guzhen delicacies, allowing global guests to fully immerse themselves in Guzhen’s cultural charm firsthand and ushering in a new phase of cultural tourism development.

Our sincere gratitude to all exhibitors, partners, media representatives, and every attendee. Your enthusiastic participation and invaluable support contributed to the outstanding success of this event. We eagerly anticipate reconnecting with you in May and October as we collectively shape a new chapter in the evolution of the Guzhen lighting industry.

To maximize impact and the overall experience, the 33rd China (Guzhen) International Lighting Fair will be held from October 22–25, 2025. The fair will prioritize precise supply and demand matching, presenting the comprehensive scope of the entire industry chain, and empowering businesses to establish swift and productive partnerships– all combining to create an event brimming with opportunity, efficiency, and explosive business growth!

We look forward to your presence at this illuminating gathering!

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SOURCE China (Guzhen) International Lighting Fair

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LEAP Group Relaunches HumanView, a Growth Intelligence System Built to Explain Why Customers Behave the Way They Do

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Reimagined from the ground up, HumanView pairs statistical modeling with expert analysts to turn millions of real-world customer signals into business decisions

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Oct. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — LEAP Group today announced the relaunch of HumanView, its growth intelligence service. The new version has been rebuilt from the ground up and now has a dedicated home at leapgroupnetwork.com/humanview.

HumanView analyzes what customers say and do across social platforms, e-commerce sites, review platforms, search behavior and user-generated content, including signals from Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Meta, Amazon and Walmart+ that general AI tools cannot always access. Because the data reflects unprompted, real-world behavior, it avoids the response bias built into surveys and focus groups.

The service works in three layers. HumanView captures signals at scale, decodes millions of records through validated statistical models such as regression, correlation and clustering, and then relies on experienced analysts to interpret the patterns. Clients receive clear, human-validated insights instead of another dashboard.

“Machines find the patterns. Humans find the point,” said Alan Gilleo, CEO at LEAP Group. “The first version of HumanView showed us how much customers reveal when nobody is asking them questions. This version is built to explain why they act the way they do, and to put those answers in front of everyone making decisions, from product to service to marketing.”

HumanView focuses on three areas:

Growth Intelligence: customer motivations and how people perceive a brand and its competitors

Market and Category Intelligence: product pain points, service friction, unmet needs and competitive gaps

Audience Intelligence: new segments, positioning opportunities and gaps in the market

Every model is designed and validated by data scientists and benchmarked before it informs a recommendation.

To learn more about HumanView, visit leapgroupnetwork.com/humanview.

About LEAP Group
LEAP Group is a boutique marketing agency holding company with offices in Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Chicago. Guided by the belief that brands should “Market Less. Matter More.,” LEAP gives clients access to specialized experts across its entire network. Learn more at leapgroupnetwork.com.

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SOURCE LEAP Group

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STEPHEN A. SMITH ADDRESSES WHITE HOUSE DINNER ATTENDANCE, REAFFIRMS COMMITMENT TO HBCUs AND PROTECTING CORPORATE INVESTMENT IN BLACK EDUCATION

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NEW YORK, Oct. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Stephen A. Smith, media mogul, New York Times bestselling author, and proud 1991 graduate of Winston-Salem State University, is addressing the public discussion surrounding his decision to attend a White House dinner with President Donald Trump, emphasizing his commitment to the long-term financial stability of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

For Smith, the decision was rooted in a commitment to institutions that have educated generations of Black leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, and public servants.

“I will always advocate for HBCUs and the students whose futures depend on them,” Smith said. “My reason for attending the White House dinner was to discuss the challenges these institutions face in securing long-term funding and to make the case that corporate America must continue to invest in them.”

Smith acknowledged federal support through the FUTURE Act while expressing concern that political tensions surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) could discourage private companies from supporting HBCUs. He maintains that these institutions deserve sustained corporate partnerships, philanthropic contributions, and public investment.

“If we truly believe in free-market capitalism, businesses should be able to support educational institutions and charitable causes without fear of criticism or repercussions,” Smith said. “HBCUs have made extraordinary contributions to this country. They deserve sustained public and private investment.”

Ashley Christopher, Esq., Founder and CEO of the HBCU Week Foundation, recognized Smith’s advocacy and decision to engage with the administration.

“Stephen A. Smith has been a powerful advocate for HBCUs, using his platform and influence to shine a national spotlight on our institutions,” expressed Christopher, “His continued support of HBCU Week helps advance our mission of connecting students with life-changing educational opportunities, and we are proud to have him as our ambassador.”

Since Smith became an HBCU Week Ambassador in 2019, the initiative has facilitated more than 15,000 on-the-spot college acceptances and raised and awarded more than $150 million in scholarships, according to the HBCU Week Foundation.

As public discussion continues, Smith is emphasizing the importance of ensuring HBCUs have the resources and partnerships needed to educate future generations and expand opportunities for students.

CLICK HERE to watch Smith’s full response to his White House visit.

MEDIA CONTACT:

media@mrsasinc.com

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stephen-a-smith-addresses-white-house-dinner-attendance-reaffirms-commitment-to-hbcus-and-protecting-corporate-investment-in-black-education-302918547.html

SOURCE Straight Shooter Media

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Advantex Announces Completion of Financing and Extension of Maturity Date of Previously Issued Debentures

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TORONTO, Oct. 23, 2026 /CNW/ — Advantex Marketing International Inc. (CSE: ADX) (“Advantex”), a leader in the merchant cash advance and loyalty marketing products for merchants, today announced the completion of a $250,000 secured debt financing. Advantex issued a $250,000 non-convertible debenture which bears an interest rate at 12% per annum and matures December 15, 2027. The proceeds raised from this issuance of the Debenture will be used for working capital purposes.

Advantex has also extended the maturity of its existing $700,000 in 12% secured debentures from October 10, 2026 to December 15, 2027.

About Advantex Marketing International Inc.

Advantex provides working capital to merchants. Advantex also provides specialized marketing programs that enable members of Aeroplan to earn Aeroplan points at participating merchants.

Advantex shares trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol ADX. For more information go to Advantex’s profile on www.sedar.com

Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of applicable securities laws relating to the future business and operations of Advantex. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. The business and operations of Advantex described herein is dependent on a number of factors and is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ material include, but are not limited to, changes in Advantex’s economic and competitive conditions including but not limited to the industry sectors in which Advantex operates.

The statements in this news release are made of the date of this release. Forward-looking statements are made based on management’s beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date the statements are made and Advantex undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable law.

SOURCE Advantex Marketing International Inc.

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