Beyond expectations

Over 260,000 visitors from 188 countries arrived at drupa 2016 in Düsseldorf, Germany, to check out the products and services offered by 1,837 exhibitors. For everyone involved, drupa was an outstanding success. Converting Today shares highlights from the trade fair and catches up with some of the attendees.

Print’s biggest trade fair is a bastion of progress for industry. Exhibitors at the 11-day event boasted excellent business prospects, promising contacts and an optimistic outlook for the future.

Claus Bolza-Schünemann, chairman of the drupa committee and board chairman at Koenig & Bauer, says: “The print industry is constantly re-inventing itself and offers a wealth of high-potential facets. This is precisely what drupa 2016 has impressively proven. We were able to experience a highly innovative industry in the 19 exhibition halls, one that has succeeded in moving out of the valley of tears and grasping the future by the neck.”

Of the visitors that attended this year, 75% were executives that make capital expenditure decisions for their companies; 54% of visitors arrived with specific investment intentions; 29% placed orders during the show; and 60% found new suppliers.

The reduced number of visitors reflected the overall consolidation happening in the industry worldwide, and proved beneficial. A higher percentage of attendees were responsible for purchasing decisions and one out of two visitors expected their business to develop positively over the next 12 months.

“Customers, with very few exceptions, no longer come with large delegations or as part of a company to drupa. It is rather the top managers that travel to Düsseldorf,” says Werner Matthias Dornscheidt, president and CEO of Messe Düsseldorf.

 Learning opportunities

In addition to the bustle of exhibitionist trade, the accompanying programme of expert presentations was a huge success. Almost 3,500 drupa delegates visited the cube – one of the themed venues at the trade fair – to learn from colleagues and experts. Of particular interest were presentations from Frans Johansson, founder and CEO of the Medici Group; Silas Amos, founder of Silas Amos and Design Thought; and Shane Wall, chief technology officer at HP and global head of HP Labs.

The drupa innovation park was also a hub of constant commerce and communication. On display were ready-to-market applications for augmented reality in field service and advertising, but also successful examples for multi-channel campaigns. The overall message imparted at the innovation park was that print creates content and adds value.

Outside the exhibition centre, the city of Düsseldorf became a part of the show, hosting 3D events, exhibitions, discussion forums and rolling labs. “Our concept of bringing the drupa themes to the city, thereby making it possible for people to understand and experience technology, has paid off 100%, says Boris Neisser, general manager of Destination Düsseldorf. “Thanks to numerous activities in the city’s centre, Düsseldorf citizens and visitors were able relate to the trade fair themes. Destination Düsseldorf was responsible for organising drupacity – taking the trade fair to the city. Neisser describes the programme as live marketing, which represented Düsseldorf’s geographic advantage.

Running every four years, the next drupa will be in 2020, which gives those interested plenty of time to make sure they take full advantage of the fair. However, those still desperate for more news will have to settle for hearing from some of this year’s exhibitors.

 Exhibitors’ testimonials

Dr Dieter Niederstadt, technical marketing manager at Asahi

In today’s market, stunning graphical quality is a given. Customers are rather looking at advancing products by improving overall equipment effectiveness. For example, by reducing make-ready waste and having fewer press wash-ups. These OEE benefits have been a hot topic in our conversations at the booth.

Jean-Pascal Bobst, CEO at Bobst

This has been a great platform for us to demonstrate how we deliver the right solutions for our customers’ applications, whether they are folding cartons, flexible material, labels or corrugated board.

Jeppe Frandsen, executive vice-president at Canon Europe

Canon came to drupa 2016 with the aim of demonstrating the range and depth of its capabilities that reflected the real business of our customers. We set out to give visitors fresh ideas about how they could expand their capabilities and to inspire them to unleash print in their own way. We’ve surpassed that objective on multiple levels. The response of visitors to what we’ve shown and discussed with them has been hugely positive. The deciding factor for so many Canon customers at drupa has been due to the inspiration they have felt at our live-print applications.

Kevin Goeminne, CEO of CHILI Publish

This year’s drupa gave us the opportunity to show how much CHILI Publish has evolved since its first participation in 2012. We seized the opportunity to meet people that we have only been in contact with via mail or phone, and to strengthen existing contacts in real life.

Guy Gecht, CEO at EFI

The USP of drupa is clearly the production plants in operation. This allows visitors to follow and assess the complete workflow, which is an asset no other trade fair in the world has to offer.

Fabian Prudhomme, vice-president at Enfocus

Again, drupa managed to attract visitors from all over the world, which gave us an extraordinary opportunity to touch base with our existing Enfocus community and new customers. We are delighted with the feedback and votes of confidence that we received from our visitors. This drupa was the most successful edition for Enfocus yet; we are already looking forward to drupa 2020.

Duncan Ferguson, executive director, professional printing and robotics at Epson Europe

We have had a very successful show with significant orders from companies around the globe, particularly for the SureColor SC-S signage range, which has led us to increase production to meet demand.

Udo Panenka, president of Esko

Esko exhibited with its sister company X-Rite Pantone and subsidiaries Enfocus and MediaBeacon. Spread out across six inspiration zones, visitors experienced combined innovations to improve the steps of a typical packaging production workflow. This drupa helped us to reconfirm our leadership position in all domains of packaging and labels workflows.

Eric Bell, marketing director at Goss

We’ve had a very successful show, working side-by-side with our partners. This will continue to be the most logical way forward to support not only our existing customers, but new prospects too. Our successes include significant product orders, the sale of the first Goss Thallo system and the launch of another Goss industry-first: the embedded colour bar for web offset packaging production.

Gerold Linzbach, CEO of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen

Thanks to drupa, Heidelberg starts its new business with a positive outlook. Our motto ‘Simply Smart’ was a success with visitors. We received a high demand for our industrial printing ranges and exceeded our own targets. The further automation of offset printing produced a high number of contracts signed especially for our high-performance presses.

Aviv Ratzman, CEO of Highcon

This year’s drupa has been a tipping point for our business. We launched our technology at drupa 2012, but this year has been a real reinforcement of our vision. Sales to new and existing customers have surpassed our expectations. Digital technology, finishing in particular, has reached become mainstream. Many customers have realised the need to invest in technology rather than expand capacity to add value to their products instead of competing on price.

Francois Martin, worldwide marketing director at HP Graphics Solutions Business

This has been a landmark show with HP experiencing the best attendance of any drupa. Sales not only surpassed the 2012 results by 20%, but exceeded our ambitious goals by 25%. This continues to be the most relevant industry event for innovation.

Robert Godwin, director of business development at Ink Router

Our first time exhibiting at drupa was a great success. It made it possible to introduce our dynamic new InkRouter to visitors from all over the world. We came into contact with leaders in the printing industry, which offered us the opportunity to network and to create more awareness and recognition of our brand.

Olivier Claude, worldwide director of sales and customer operations at Kodak

Tens of thousands of high-calibre visitors and customers from around the world visited our stand to do business and see the more than 20 products and technologies that Kodak launched at this year’s show. The fact that we hit our sales target on the seventh day and reached 168% of our sales target on the ninth is testimony of the industry’s trust in our cutting-edge technology, which helps our customers deliver profitability, sustainability and growth.

Benny Landa, chairman of Landa

This year’s trade fair will be remembered as the point in the industry’s transition from mechanical printing to digital. In the past, digital printing vendors had to try to convince the market that digital is the way to go. Customers and brand-owners now demand digital printing. It seems that the market leaders in packaging, commercial printing and publishing have realised that they simply must go digital.

Lilach Sapir, vice-president of marketing and business development at Massivit 3D Printing Technology

This was Massivit 3D’s first presentation at an international trade fair. It was a great chance for us to present our printing solutions. Our expectations are more than fulfilled. We had sales to large/wide format printers that understand 3D printing is the future and enables them to add another dimension to their business to grow their services and business in the visual communication world.

Mike Horsten, general marketing manager EMEA at Mimaki

Our Design Book was a big hit, as it shows what kind of applications Mimaki customers have already developed in the past – thanks our clients for their creativity. This portfolio also inspires people and shows the amazing results that emerge when we create with our clients.

Karl Fritchen, president at QuadTech

We wanted to reach specific printing markets with the launch of four new products. There is no better place than drupa to connect with those markets, and take advantage of the bright spotlight. It seemed that almost all in attendance were customers or potential customers. After investing heavily in new technology innovations, drupa gives us the opportunity to meet with our markets directly, and show them the fruits of our labour.

John Blyth, market development manager and production printing business group at Ricoh

For us, drupa 2016 has been all about enabling Ricoh to open new worlds of opportunity to new and potential clients alike. Most notable has been the seniority and influence of so many of those that we have been proud to host at our stand. From multidrop inkjet and additive manufacturing to end-to-end workflow, neon toner, and lean and green consultancy, drupa 2016 has been eventful.

Dr Markus Heering, managing director of printing and paper technology at VDMA

Our VDMA stand got an enormous response, but our member companies also gave us the feedback that the quality of conversations they had, and the number of leads and new orders, was extremely positive. Our manufacturers have made use of the recent difficult years to develop custom-fit solutions for the changed needs in the print industry. We have every reason to look to the future with optimism.

Danny Mertens, corporate communications manager at Xeikon

This year was a special edition for us. It was our first major show since we were acquired by Flint Group. We aimed to create an open and welcome atmosphere at our booth – and this was more than visible through the amount of visitors on our stand every day. It gave us the opportunity to get in contact with partners, competitors, existing customers that we have known for years and new customers from all over the world. It was a unique experience, not only because of drupa’s size, but because of its diverse attendees.