Drupa Snooper - what's hot and what's not at the industry's largest trade fair
Welcome to the first installment of Andy McCourt's Drupa Snooper, the column that lifts the lid on what is happening in printing, publishing, paper and packaging using the industry's largest trade fair as the catalyst.
Trends, new technologies, the passing parade of old tech, geographic power-shifts and the underbelly of what drupa 2012 represents will all be pried into. Most importantly, Drupa Snooper aims to keep you informed in a way that cuts through the hype and spin that always accompanies large trade fairs, and bring you information that is helpful in planning your business future. The Snooper might stray into scuttlebutt and whimsy on occasion, but you do need a little mustard on your knackwurst, eh?
Chinese checkers – counters in every hall
Make no mistake, if this drupa 2012 is to have an appropriate tag attached to it in the way 2000 was the ‘CtP drupa’ and 2008 the ‘Inkjet drupa,’ a careful study of the floor plans and the huge Messe Düsseldorf venue indicates this one could be the ‘Chinese drupa.’ Apart from Heidelberg’s Hall 1 and its close affiliates in Hall 2, every other one of the 17 Halls features exhibitors from the People’s Republic of China – 222 of them and rising.
Never before has there been a printing industry trade fair outside of China with so many Chinese companies exhibiting. Some will be familiar, such as plate manufacturer Xingraphics, press manufacturer Hans Grohni and Founder Electronics but many names will be new, such as Guangdong Sky Dragon Printing Inks, Blue Sky UV&IR Technical Development, Shanghai Yoco Prining Machinery, the delightfully-named Shanghai Purple Magenta Printing Machine Company and scores more.
Most of these new drupa exhibitors have been corralled by one of three central organizing bodies who have taken care of the groundwork. These are PEIAC (Printing Equipment Industries Association of China), CCPIT (China Council for the Promotion of International Trade) and BMIE (Beijing Meorient International Exhibitions). Blocks of exhibition space have been booked in all but two halls, and these are then divided up into smaller areas for the newcomers. There are exceptions, such as Shanghai Electric and its affiliated companies, including Goss, in Hall17 where this group occupies half of the floor space.
Messe Düsseldorf has strong ties with PR China, being one of the organizers of the triennial All In Print China exhibition there. It is quite likely that the valuable relationships established staging the four All In Print shows has borne fruit and resulted in what appears to be a massive export push by Chinese printing and allied equipment and material manufacturers. Interestingly, 2012 is a Dragon year in the Chinese Zodiac, a year for good fortune and growth. Not only this, but it is the first Water Dragon year for six decades – an even better portent for prosperity!
With the exception of Hall 1, which is pure Heidelberg, and Hall 2, which is Heidelberg’s affiliates and subsidiaries such as Polar Mohr, Gallus and Kama, it will be hard to visit any of drupa’s 17 Halls without running into a Chinese exhibition booth of some sort. Of course, these booths need staff and the companies will encourage their domestic customers to attend so we can expect PR China visitor numbers to be sky-high. At drupa 2008, they were not even in the top eight.
Are we seeing the ‘Photokina-isation’ of drupa? By this, I mean that in the 1950s and 60s, the world’s largest photographic trade fair in Cologne was dominated by great German, Swiss, Scandinavian and Austrian manufacturers such as Rollei, Voigtländer, Zeiss, Leica, Bolex, Eumig, Schneider, Linhof, Hasselblad, Agfa and Sinar. Today, Photokina is all about Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Sony, Olympus, JVC and Fujifilm and there are few German manufacturers left.
With a huge question mark hanging over manroland’s future ownership – and Shanghai Electric mentioned as a prospective purchaser of the sheetfed division – we could see even more Chinese ownership of printing and packaging industry manufacturing by the time drupa opens its doors on May 2nd.
Ah well, paper was invented in China by T’sai Lun around 105 AD and moveable type printing by Pi Sheng a good 400 years before Gutenberg’s first press. Maybe the chickens are coming home to roost. Or the water dragons.
Trends, new technologies, the passing parade of old tech, geographic power-shifts and the underbelly of what drupa 2012 represents will all be pried into. Most importantly, Drupa Snooper aims to keep you informed in a way that cuts through the hype and spin that always accompanies large trade fairs, and bring you information that is helpful in planning your business future. The Snooper might stray into scuttlebutt and whimsy on occasion, but you do need a little mustard on your knackwurst, eh?