Changing the game: if Drupa moves to a three-year cycle

 from 2015, it will clash with Ipex in 2018

With less and less money sloshing around, it is hard to find anyone with a good word for a plan to increase the frequency of Europe's main show

Revolution is brewing on the continent. Manuel Mataré, director of Drupa, is retiring and, perhaps unsurprisingly for a man who has been synonymous with the world’s largest print trade show for the best part of two decades, he is going out with a bang.

When he appears before the 22-strong Drupa committee next month, Mataré’s parting recommendation will be that they shorten the Düsseldorf-based show from 14 to 11 days.

"But there’s one more thing," you can imagine him saying, in vintage Steve Jobs’ style. "We should hold Drupa every three years starting in 2015."

If the committee goes with Mataré’s recommendation, despite apparent strong exhibitor resistance to the three-year cycle, and there seems every chance it might, it would have a dramatic impact on the international print trade show calendar.

Collision course

The consequences for the other international print trade shows – not least Ipex, with which Drupa would be on a collision course in 2018 – would be potentially disastrous, while the relatively harmonious four-year cycle that has existed since the last schedule change post-Drupa 2000 would be left in tatters.

According to Picon executive director Tim Webb, it was during the last schedule change that Picon, working with its counterparts from around Europe and America as part of Eumaprint, agreed the four-year calendar "so that exhibitors had something stable to plan around".

The agreed cycle allowed for one major international exhibition every year over a four-year period: Drupa in Germany, followed by Print in North America, Ipex in the UK and Igas in Japan. It was recognised that China Print might one day replace Igas as the fourth show, but the places of Drupa, Print and Ipex were assured.

While the three-year cycle was mooted by Drupa around the same time, former Picon chief executive John Brazier says it was not considered a "realistic threat" (see opinion) and few would have thought that it would be back on the agenda just three Drupas later.

Since then Eumaprint has evolved into Global Print, which includes representation from China, India and Japan, and, if the Drupa committee ratifies Mataré’s plan next month, it will be down to this organisation to stop a plan that Webb believes will cause "chaos" for exhibitors.

Support for the shorter 11-day duration is seemingly universal, but there is far less enthusiasm for the move to a three-year cycle, and speculation is rife as to the logic behind the proposed move. One exhibitor speculated that it was an "aggressively defensive" response to Ipex moving to London – a city with unarguably greater international appeal than its former home in Birmingham and Drupa’s in Düsseldorf. Mataré, on the other hand, has implied the move is in response to exhibitor demand, although PrintWeek has yet to find an exhibitor that is in favour of holding Drupa every three years.

"Four years suits exhibitors in a lot of ways," says Eric Bell, EMEA marketing manager at Goss International. "It works from an R&D point of view, for planning, for budgets and for the other shows we want to support.

"I haven’t found anybody who’s comfortable with the idea of moving to a three-year cycle at a time when we’re questioning trade shows in general."

Fujifilm UK managing director Keith Dalton adds that the timing of the proposed move – introducing the three-year cycle in 2015 by bringing the 2016 show forward – is an added concern given that planning for the show would have to begin within six months of the Drupa committee’s decision.

"I think the idea would probably sit easier if they said it was going to be moving in 2017, three years after the next Ipex, rather than bringing 2016 forward, because it would cost less money," he argues. "This is going to put more stress on budgets at a time when the industry is already under pressure."

With Mataré’s appearance before the Drupa committee still a fortnight away it is anyone’s guess whether the move to a three-year cycle will be more than a flash in the pan. One thing Webb is adamant about is that the other global exhibition organisers will not march to the Messe’s drum should they try to force what many view as an unwelcome and uneccessary change on the industry.

Unequivocal support

He says: "We are unequivocally in support of Ipex because it’s a very good show for our members and we equally support the current four-year cycle, which has strong benefits for the exhibitors: it fits with their R&D cycles; it is stable; it has been adopted around the world; and it avoids clashes."

Mataré has argued that "There are good reasons for three years, there are good reasons for four years [but] the best reason for four years is that people don’t like change".

However, with the global economy a source of enough uncertainty, Webb believes there has never been a worse time to change a system that gives exhibitors stability and certainty in their ability to plan and budget for the major print exhibitions.

"The worst thing that could happen right now would be to provoke chaos and I don’t think the other exhibitions will stand back and allow this to happen," he says.