The founder of controversial tobacco brand Death Cigarettes has been named among speakers at this year's Manufacturing Live.

The show, on 20 and 21 September and free to manufacturers, will host more than 2000 manufacturing decision makers at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry.

Serial entrepreneur BJ Cunningham is among speakers, with Nick Bray-shaw, chairman of the CBI Manufacturing Council and Barclays' UK Manufacturing Investment Board.

Other speakers include Paul Pritchard, head of learning and development at JCB, Paul Lester, chief executive of VT Group, and Alan McLenaghan of Saint Gobain Glass and a Bank of England adviser.

The Manufacturer Live also features more than 50 free manufacturer-tomanufacturer presentations, workshops, seminars and debates.

As well as regular features such as the prestigious Manufacturer LIVE Awards, celebrating best practice, this year's event will benefit from an entire zone dedicated to outsourcing, off-shoring and global procurement.

The relevance and importance of energy has been given special attention for the event as, for the first time, attendees can look forward to Energy Business Live, which will run alongside The Manufacturer Live.

Here visitors can learn about the challenge of soaring costs, security and diversity of supply, climate change and carbon trading, during a two-day workshop and seminar programme.

Highly qualified speak-ers including Dr Tim Lunel, chief executive of the National Energy Foundation and Lars Clausen, general manager of Shell Gas Direct, have agreed to take part in the event.

Glen White, group chief executive of the event organiser Conquest Business Media, said: "Our mission is to bring together all stakeholders in UK manufacturing under one roof to tackle the key challenges facing this sector.

"The state-of-the-art facilities at the Ricoh Arena, combined with new features such as Energy Business Live and our best ever line-up of speakers make for a very exciting event."