The FESPA 2013 and European Sign Expo (ESE) audience was dominated by senior decision makers, with an unprecedented 71.3 percent of visitors having input to purchasing decisions, and half having ultimate purchasing responsibility. With over 22000 individual visitors checking in to London’s ExCeL exhibition centre over the five days of the FESPA event, the event exceeded Munich 2010. With almost half of those choosing to spend more than one day at the show, bringing total attendance to 37,460 visits.

London’s global status as a business hub made for significant increases in long-haul attendance from Australasia (+66 percent) and North America (+45 percent) compared with the last main FESPA event in Munich, Germany in 2010. Visitors from Sub-Saharan Africa doubled compared with 2010, reinforcing the strong rationale for the launch – announced the day before FESPA 2013 - of FESPA Africa to take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, in July 2014. Altogether, visitors from beyond Europe constituted almost 15 percent of the total event audience.

After the UK, the largest visitor groups were from Germany, Benelux, France, Italy and Spain, highlighting the continued significance of this leading wide-format event for print service providers from key Western European markets. London proved a particularly appealing destination for printers from the Nordic and Baltic regions, with an increase of over 68 percent in attendance from these countries compared with FESPA 2010 in Munich.

FESPA managing director Neil Felton comments, “The exhibitors I’ve spoken to here at FESPA have been absolutely delighted with the breadth of international visitors, and stands throughout both halls here at ExCeL have been buzzing. Significant product launches in many areas have given visitors plenty of new technology to explore, while our visitor features have attracted printers looking for guidance on how to take their business in new directions.”