This is going to be the first Drupa that Picon attends. That is the first since it sold Ipex and the first since last year’s merger between the old Picon and the Association of Printing Machinery Importers. For in one way or another Picon has been at every Drupa since the 1960s, first as the British Print Manufacturers and Suppliers Association, then as The British Federation of Printing Manufacturers and Suppliers and latterly as Picon. It adds up to hundreds of years’ experience in being at trade shows and understanding their role in the industry.

Neil Sutton, managing director of Komori UK, says succinctly: “It is a golden opportunity in our schedule. When it comes to launching a product, Drupa is the cheapest and fastest way to do this. Drupa is a worldwide event. How can anyone afford not to go?”

Picon’s remit has been to help British manufacturers with their exports. In days gone by this included direct support from the British Overseas Trade Board and being corralled into ghettos of companies marked by the Union Jack. That direct support has gone, but there is still some money used to promote the British companies going to Drupa through advertising. The UK is still one of the major countries in terms of manufacturers attending, being overtaken this time by China. There are other advantages to working with Picon for Drupa, as the organisation uses its muscle to buy blocks of floor space, dividing this up to allow members wanting only 20sq m to pay a 500sq m rate for example. It’s also on hand to help with some of the local formalities for the first-time exhibitor. “We also include a shell scheme for the stand so that members need only turn up and start selling,” says Tim Webb, now Picon executive director. “Our job is to help the less experienced companies.” He remembers being a Drupa virgin with spray powder supplier Russell-Webb in the days when speaking German and understanding the culture was vastly more important than it is today. “As a smaller company exhibiting for the first time in 1986, it was all a bit daunting. Picon is all about encouraging its members to go to overseas exhibitions. It certainly helped us and we used it to make contact with new distributors.”

The typical growth path is to begin in this way, form the distribution networks and end up with your own larger stand or else as part of the stand for the company that you represent. This is certainly the case for many Picon members where a company like Friedheim International will need to be present in a number of halls around the show. Others like Komori UK, Heidelberg UK, Agfa and Screen are present with their parent companies. But if going to Drupa is a straightforward decision for exhibitors, it is less so for printers. At Drupa in 2004, British voices were especially thin on the ground.

Bob Usher, joint managing director of Apex Digital Graphics, thinks he knows why. “For many years we were supplying only the small sector of the industry and there the proprietors of the businesses were working in the factory and felt they didn’t have the time to go. But now that we have grown into the B2 sector, we find there’s a reasonable percentage of our customers that are going. They have a little more flesh on the bone, a little more structure and can take time away from the coal-face. Unfortunately it’s only the larger companies that can do this now.

“This is a great shame because Drupa is such an important exhibition for research. We will see the companies that know they should be investing for the future, not the ones that are trying to hang on until retirement.”

Around the Picon board this was a well supported division. “I would be amazed if our larger customers didn’t go,” says George Clarke, chairman of Picon and md of Heidleberg UK. “It is definitely an investment in your business and there is a marked difference between those companies that have kept up and those that have not kept up. Twenty years ago the pace of change was vastly different and perhaps there was less need to go, but the pace of change has accelerated.”

Nevertheless there will be printers who say that their suppliers tell them what they need to know so mitigating any need to visit. Today this is a spurious argument. Only by seeing the equipment in action can someone begin to calculate the implications. Most of the major manufacturers will have told their key customers what will be on display, but the printers will still be coming.

“Those big buyers are well briefed,” Laurence Roberts, Agfa director, says. “But they still go because they know that they will see things other than this. There’s a strong desire to make sure they are absolutely on the ball in terms of technology that drives them to go.”

Clarke adds quickly: “And that technology will not always be on the larger stands, it’s the smaller items of technology that help solve a particular problem that can make a visit worthwhile.”

What has happened according to Peter Morris, managing director of Friedheim International, is that manufacturers need to inform customers ahead of the show in order to justify the increasing costs of exhibiting. It’s a way of minimising the risk. “These days we know what is going to be there from the manufacturers we represent, we know what the surprises are. Unfortunately it has all become a bit serious in that respect.” But however well informed the likes of MBO, Hunkeler and so on try to make Friedheim and its customers, there will always be suppliers that are unknown to the vast majority of visitors and who come up with the unexpected.

For Webb, this serendipity aspect is vital: “You never know who you will walk past, who you will see. For me it is quietly frustrating that British printers do not go in the numbers they should. The Japanese for example take it as a matter of duty to their company to go to see what is new in technology. I think the British are missing a trick.”

This Drupa is going to be about inkjet printing, about further developments in JDF and automation and for many companies, Heidelberg included, it’s about large format printing. The press manufacturer has long promised that it will show a 145cm press and 162cm machine at the very least. Early examples are with printers so the only surprise would be if there were an even larger press on show. Even though there has been this level of advance information, Clarke reckons that until you can see and touch it, there can only be a partial understanding. “You don’t get your head around something like the VLF machine until you see it, until you stand alongside, until you can see what it does. That’s the difference between it remaining a concept and words in a brochure and the reality. You need to see it work to appreciate the impact it might have.”

If this is the case with what is an extension of an existing technology, it is doubly so with a new technology like inkjet. HP, Agfa, Fuji and Screen are going to be making a big deal about inkjet with the latter giving over the majority of the stand to new types of inkjet press. It has announced a larger format machine, it is delivering the first versions of a high-performance inkjet web press and can be expected to have other as yet unannounced new inkjet presses on show, including perhaps a high-quality inkjet sheetfed press.

“Yes we will have some surprises,” says Brian Filler. “I have said that Drupa will mark the start of the demise of the conventional printing press. In future there will be fewer conventional presses sold and more digital and more inkjet machines. There will be products introduced and available that will compete with standard devices, not just from a speed point of view. Digital printing has been associated with ‘good enough colour’, but I think that inkjet will change this. It has arrived from the quality point of view and the speed point of view. Some of the things that will happen at Drupa will be quite a shock.
“So British printers need to be there to see what is on show – more than ever before at an international exhibition. This technology has arrived even if it might not be shipping today.”

Screen can therefore expect a good flow of visitors, not just from potential customers but also from other manufacturers, for as much as the technology is laid out for the delectation of printers it is also for other suppliers to pick up on and understand the technologies being shown. Will Screen’s inkjet thrust really change the industry for example?

Clarke is not so sure. “Suppliers need to be as up to date as printers so Drupa is as relevant to us because we need to know what is going on, to understand the level of threat to our business. We need to see what these technologies can do and the technology limitations because there are both up sides to any technology and there are down sides which may not have been perceived.”

The other great change that will be apparent at Drupa is the tremendous shift eastwards. Visitors from Asia – India and China in particular – are expected in unprecedented numbers. There are some 10,000 Indian visitors expected alone, this justifying the presence of Indian catering on site. Obtaining visas for Chinese printers is easier than ever so visitor numbers from China are expected to be higher, so too for Russia and other central European markets. Picon members have direct experience of this already, having fielded requests to host study tours of groups of up to 50 Chinese printers looking to visit leading UK printers.

For the likes of Russell-Webb and Picon’s members which produce machinery or consumables, meeting new customers is crucial. Roy Caslon, who has been at every Drupa since the 1970s, is adamant on this point. “We don’t want to meet British printers. We are an English manufacturer and we want to sell to a European and world market; for us it’s about finding agents and exploring the market in Europe and elsewhere.”

The size and scope of Drupa means that it can comfortably accommodate these different requirements; that it can be a show to meet customers, to view the technology and to be inspired by a surprise in each aisle.