The digi:media trade fair of 10 to 12 April 2013 will not be held as planned. Even though the international supply sector explicitly welcomed the innovative concept of the specialist trade fair for commercial publishing and digital printing, the indications are that participation by the industry will not be sufficient to truly mirror the sector. With its slogan “Content meets Technology meets Business”, digi:media 2011 wanted to provide a solution-oriented congress and trade show platform to cover cross-media communications for all media channels and to address the entire workflow including all relevant visitor target groups. The compelling triad of content, technology and business and the interactive nature of the trade fair and congress programmes were responsible the particular success of digi:media 2011.

“It was our challenge for 2013 to further develop this innovative concept and to consolidate or cautiously build upon the success of the first show”, says Manuel Mataré, Director of digi:media. This was successfully completed for the expert programme; the “content” pillar of digi:media has been completed thanks to the broad network of co-operations with sectoral associations, specialist publishing houses and stakeholders. The trade fair segment of digi:media 2013 – i.e. the “technology” pillar - presents a totally different picture. Cancellations, cutbacks of exhibition space - but above all the pronounced reserve shown by representative players in the sector do not let us expect a digi:media which will do justice to its own quality claims and the interests of the industry.

“It was a hard decision for us to cancel digi:media 2013. But given the current state of registrations and the unlikely prospect of a radical turnaround in registration patterns, it was time to pull the ripcord”, says Manuel Mataré in explaining the motivation of Messe Düsseldorf. “We carefully analysed the pros and cons – especially because of the particularly strong commitment of our partners”, continues Manuel Mataré. “But one thing is clear: Messe Düsseldorf always has been and always will be a reliable and responsible partner of industry. In this context, it was also important for us to give planning certainty to the exhibitors who have registered already and not to confront these companies with short-term decisions.”

digi:media 2013 will therefore not be held in its proven format and design. But, in a dialogue with the cooperation partners, there will be a timely examination whether and to what extent individual elements of the ‘content’ part can and will be realised in Düsseldorf in future.