It may have rained hard in Düsseldorf for the first few days, but as I write this the sun is shining on the exhibitors not only literally, but also metaphorically as drupa draws to a close. Only one day before the end of the world’s largest print and converting show Heidelberg’s ceo Bernhard Schreier announces: “At this year’s drupa we will record orders amounting to over €800M, comfortably ahead of our expectations.” Bobst was happy too – six of the new Titan SR8 slitters and six Apollo sheeters were sold.
I was sitting next to managing director of drupa Mateus Matare one lunchtime in the middle of the show when his phone beeped. It was his daily one pm message direct from the turnstiles – technology that must be the envy of exhibition organizers the world over. Numbers were up over the same day in 2000. Although it was a slower start to this year’s event, the middle certainly proved busy.
The show may have been hailed as the jdf drupa with workflow the king, but it was also very much the packaging production drupa; prepress, offset, gravure, digital and postpress finishing – the doing and the talking was of the converting market. Perhaps the only disappointment was flexo where, with notable exceptions, developments were few and far between.
Our drupa report in this issue comes to you direct from the show.
STOP PRESS: Final attendance figure was over 394,000 of which 54 per cent were from outside Germany.