In just its third year, and in challenging economic conditions, the conference and exhibition, held at the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, attracted a record total attendance of 1054 (up by more than 25 percent on 2008).

Breaking that attendance down, it is clear that the event has also grown to become a truly international event, with more than 43 countries represented. Indeed 42 percent of the visitors came from outside of the UK, and 15 percent from outside of Europe.

Over the two-day event, the 265 conference attendees enjoyed three keynotes, 10 highly-topical streams and more than 50 expert presentations, all of which were professionally filmed and distributed after the event.

The exhibition also broke new ground, with 68 exhibitors from across the world, and from every part of the supply chain, ensuring that the show was a sell-out success. A record 13 sponsors also demonstrated their leadership in the industry, with a variety of sponsorship packages ensuring high individual visibility.

Commenting on the success of the event, Mark Lockie, managing director, Science Media Partners Ltd, said: "We are delighted with the clear endorsement of this event by industry and governments from across the world. In just two years we have almost doubled in size. But we are not complacent. It will be our mission in the coming months to ensure that our 2010 event becomes the largest gathering of security document, advanced border control and document anti-counterfeiting experts in the world."

Preparations for Security Document World 2010 are already underway and Science Media Partners Ltd announces that the fourth Security Document World Conference and Exhibition will be held at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Westminster, London, 9-10 February 2010.

Further announcements will be made in the coming weeks and months about the new features at next year's show. One which certainly will be returning is our VIP programme. Working on behalf of many of our exhibitors, Science Media Partners invited numerous special guests from across industry and government. We were delighted that more than 50 were able to attend the event, bolstering our already very high-quality visitorship, which was rated at an average of 4.3 out of 5 by our exhibitors.