More delegates than ever extend visit for full exploration of FESPA 'universe of print' between 18 and 22 May in Cologne…

FESPA 2015: Global expo attendance up 17%

FESPA 2015 Global Expo drew its largest total audience ever, with 43775 visits to Koelnmesse over the five days of the show, an increase of 17per cent compared with the previous flagship FESPA event in London in 2013.

The combined event attracted 23137 individual (unique) visitors, with the majority electing to stay at the show for more than one day, resulting in the highest ever revisit rate for any FESPA event. This reflects the increased scope of FESPA's Global Expo in terms of exhibiting companies and educational content, which motivated visitors to extend their visit beyond one day to take in all the product innovations and educational opportunities.

The speciality print mega-event played host to more than 750 exhibitors under four distinct event brands: FESPA 2015 (screen, digital and textile printing); FESPA Fabric (garment printing and decoration); European Sign Expo (non-printed signage) and Printeriors (printed interior décor).

FESPA 2015 Global Expo also offered visitors an Educational Hub, Sign Hub, Wrap Cup Masters vehicle wrapping area, 3D and Industrial Print Showcases, a gallery of FESPA Awards entries, and the new Printeriors conference featuring speakers from the interior design and architectural communities.

An increased emphasis on textile applications - including soft signage, interior décor applications and garment printing - was notable throughout the halls of FESPA 2015 Global Expo. This was reinforced by the publication on Wednesday 20 May of the six directional trends emerging from FESPA's global Print Census, one of which was the rise of textile applications as a means of diversification for print service providers.

FESPA CEO Neil Felton commented, ‘This was the most colourful, most comprehensive FESPA event we have ever delivered, and printers from all over the world touched down in Cologne, ready to discover their universe of print. This record attendance is an unmistakable signal of the renewed energy, optimism and engagement of our global community of suppliers and service providers.

‘The fact that so many visitors committed more than a day to the show reflects the vast spectrum of innovative products and applications that were there to be explored, and cements FESPA's reputation as the most comprehensive global event for wide format and speciality print.’

‘Each FESPA exhibition is a reflection of the inventiveness and vitality that runs through the veins of our community, and the 2015 show floor was buzzing with imagination and opportunity. What's clear from these five days in Cologne is that the word 'print' barely does justice to the diverse and imaginative technologies, products and concepts that now come together under one roof at FESPA.’

A strike by Deutsche Bahn employees impacted national train services in Germany on days three and four (Wednesday / Thursday) of the five-day show, with some service disruption continuing towards the Whitsun holiday weekend. FESPA responded by providing free shuttle bus services from Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt airports, enabling international visitors travelling by plane to reach the exhibition with ease.

FESPA 2015 Exhibitor Testimonials

HP
FESPA has been very good for HP. We are very happy with the leads we generated, the deals we closed and the attraction, awareness and pre-orders we generated for our PageWide XL product family.

Ronen Zioni, EMEA Market Development Director Graphic Solutions Business, HP

Antalis
On the Antalis stand, we've displayed lots of new products from our recently extended range of Coala products. We've shown live wall applications and received a very good response from visitors, customers and also end users of the products. The show has an international reach, but it's great for us to be exhibiting for the first time in Cologne as we are based nearby and found our connections are working very well for us.

Marius Knudsen, Product and Marketing Manager, Antalis GmbH

Admax
This was the first time we had a stand at FESPA and we are so glad of this wise decision. FESPA 2015 proved itself to be a great platform for all exhibitors to meet new clients and grasp new ideas of this industry. Though our stand was back towards the main entrance, we still got more than 200 contacts during this 5-day show. The badge scanners were very helpful and saved us a lot of work - we are looking forward to next year's FESPA in Amsterdam!

Anita Pan, Sales Director, Admax Exhibit & Display Ltd.

AEG
It's been a really positive show, with a very high calibre of visitors. This is our first global exhibition, so it was really important for us to make the right impression. We've secured potential deals worldwide, as well as potential distribution partners so it really couldn't have gone better, it's truly exceeded our expectations. We are now reviewing the possibility of attending FESPA Africa, as we have recently acquired a new distribution partner in that region. FESPA as a platform has proven itself to be very positive for us.

Karim Ladhu, CEO, AEG - Image Technologies

Arlon Graphics
FESPA has gone really well for us. We've had lots of great leads and have done so over the years we've exhibited here. FESPA is huge for us, it's our biggest show in Europe and we see a lot of return-on-investment from the show.

Nicole Devaud, Trade Show Coordinator, Arlon Graphics

Avery Dennison
There's been a great buzz at FESPA 2015. The market is healthy and growing and we've had very positive feedback from visitors excited about the opportunities in wrapping. FESPA enables us to engage signage companies from around the world with the possibilities of wrapping. By inviting visitors to play with the products in a live show environment, we can help them overcome their fear of the unknown, and have a face to face conversation about how - with good products and the right training and support - this could be a lucrative revenue stream for them.

Eric Ide, Global Segment Director Wrapping Films, Avery Dennison Graphics Solutions

AXYZ
FESPA is always a great show and this year didn't disappoint. A fully supportive FESPA team made the show extremely easy for the exhibitors, whilst the huge footfall made it the perfect opportunity to launch our latest product. The Trident Series, the most versatile router-knife combination in its class, with a new twin head knife unit and faster knife processing received great reviews from our dealers, customers and potential prospects worldwide. It's an exciting time to be involved with FESPA, and it's an exciting time to buy with AXYZ.

Robert Marshall, VP Market Development, AXYZ International

BestSub
We had a good time during the FESPA show. We met many exisiting customers, introduced our new products to them and discussed further business cooperation with each other at the stand. There's also lots of opportunities to meet new customers. Good job FESPA!
Reanys Yu, BestSub

BGreklam
We are glad to have exhibited at FESPA 2015. It was a great experience and fulfilled our expectations. At FESPA, BGreklam has shown something really special. BGreklam exhibited its transparent LCDs and its hologram POS systems. In addition, we have presented latest version of our brand Quick Stand which is POS premium presentation system, and our entry for FESPA Awards, which was shortlisted.

Ana Durkovic, Sales Development Manager, BGreklam

Brett Martin
FESPA exhibitions are proving to go from strength to strength, attracting the right audience and creating a strong pull for any new or existing distributors and printers. We are pleased with the number of prospective clients from emerging markets that visited our stand, and look forward to continuing the positive discussions with them in the coming weeks. For Brett Martin, FESPA is a must-attend exhibition. Not only are we confirming our stand at FESPA Digital 2016 in Amsterdam, but we will also look at some of the association's shows around the world to focus on our core markets further afield.

Duncan Smith, Sales Director, Brett Martin

Canon
FESPA is a unique opportunity to engage with a wide, but also relevant, audience and once again it has proven to be a great success for Canon. We recognise that FESPA offers a positive environment where customers can explore new possibilities and make considered investment decisions and from a business point of view FESPA 2015 has been just as strong as 2014.

We received very encouraging visitor feedback throughout the show, particularly on the new UV curable inks for our Arizona flatbed printers, the strength of our CrystalPoint technology in the graphic arts market and the themed approach to the Canon stand, which placed emphasis on guiding visitors through a diverse range of application possibilities.

The architecture of the stand was designed to tell the whole Canon wide format story and it was encouraging to receive feedback that customers were clearly excited by the applications made accessible with our comprehensive technology portfolio, from the Océ Arizona 6100 Series and Canon imagePROGRAF devices to the newly launched Océ ColorWave 700.

Once again, a great show.

Pierre-Olivier Esteban, European TDS & DGS Marketing Director, Canon Europe

Concordia Textiles
This is the sixth time Concordia Textiles has participated at FESPA and for us it was the best show ever. We appreciated the amount and quality of visitors as well as the multi-nationality. We will be back next year! Many thanks to the whole FESPA team.

Dirk De Locht, Concordia Textiles

Demill
This is the second time our company has participated at FESPA. Our stand attracted a lot of visitors, which was 100 per cent made from graphic board, D-Board and was 100 per cent recycled after the show. We had over 200 contacts during the exhibition, with maybe 30 per cent being from Germany and the rest from all around the globe. We already had orders placed during the show, it was a real success and we're tired but very happy! Of course, we've already booked for Amsterdam - see you there!

Celine Colin, Sales Director, Demill

dgen
The response of FESPA 2015 visitors has gone beyond our expectations. Faithful to our pioneering approach, we've proposed a new paradigm shift based on textile pigments and a fully integrated workflow for the production of printed fabrics using not only direct and transfer dye-sub, but a fully integrated workflow based on water based pigments. From the pre-treatment of uncoated fabrics, made using our new CaP machine, up to printing with Artrix G5 and professional post-treatment. Also our new Papyrus G5 printer, based on the same Ricoh Gen5 printheads, has placed incredible number of orders from end users and resellers. This is a clear signal that the traditional FESPA soft signage audience is now looking for clever solutions to open new high-margin businesses, and that FESPA itself has been able expand its pool of visitors to Home and Technical Textile. d.gen continues to support FESPA as the global textile sponsor and starting from tomorrow we will start working for an even more exciting FESPA Amsterdam.

Andrea Negretti, VP & WW Business Manager

Digital Blanks
This was second year Digital Blanks has exhibited at FESPA and once again the highlight of our trade show calendar. It is the perfect platform for us to converse with our target market. The show is exceptionally well delivered and the quality of visitor unrivalled from any other show we exhibit at.

Rob Hayes, Marketing Director, Digital Blanks

Durst UK
From a UK perspective, FESPA 2015 once again proved to be an ideal opportunity for meeting customers and prospects. Indeed, we concluded several investments there. Feedback from the numerous knowledgeable visitors I met with at such a worthwhile show, were extremely interested to find out more about our products and game changing Durst water technology.

Peter Bray, Durst UK and Ireland Managing Director

EFI
FESPA Cologne was the best trade show in Europe in recent history. Robust traffic over the full five days allowed us to maximise the opportunity from Monday through Friday which showed in the number of leads generated, meetings held and the business we were able to close during this year's show.

Paul Cripps, managing director of EFI EMEA

Enfocus
Creativity galore in a flawless output - that was this year's motto for Enfocus, an Esko company, at FESPA. The show is vibrant with ideas and every stand and onsite initiative oozes with inspiration. All creative minds benefit from solutions that help them execute their designs in a print perfect manner. Enfocus aims at helping designers and print service providers to do just that with its prepress and automation software, consisting of key products PitStop, Switch and Connect. At FESPA we felt that the large format market is ready to embrace the benefits automation software has to offer, which resulted in high value sales leads at our stand. FESPA has been good to us, we look forward to the further roll-out and the next edition!

Björn Willems, Director Product Management, Enfocus

ESMA
The Industrial Print Showcase was filled with mostly screen printed items such as in-mould decoration (IMD) for automotive, speed indicators for a dashboard using IMD/FIM, bottles, tableware, electroluminescent Coca-Cola poster, printed electronic examples such as LED on textile display and automotive glass. This showed that screen printing is still the leading process for these industrial applications.

Peter Buttiens, CEO, ESMA

Epson
This FESPA was very well organised and attracted a much more international spread of visitors than ever before. It was a really good show for Epson - our stand was constantly busy with a diverse range of companies all the way from Africa to Siberia interested in our latest inkjet printers for dye sub, signage, textile and decor applications.

Richard Barrow, Senior Product Manager, Epson Europe

Ergosoft
ErgoSoft would like to thank everyone for this fantastic FESPA 2015 in Cologne. It was a good opportunity to present our products and to demonstrate the quality of our RIP software. We also had the chance to introduce to you our new CEO Anna Tobler at the show. We had some fruitful meetings with resellers and business partners on our stand. We are looking forward to FESPA Digital next year in Amsterdam.

Corina Hurschler, Application Specialist & Marketing Assistant, Ergosoft

Exile Technologies
FESPA 2015 is one of the best trade shows we've been to in many years. We've had an excellent response from visitors, I haven't been able to say that in years.

Phillip Wanzong, Product Manager, Exile Technologies

Foteco Remco
FESPA 2015 has been a great show for us. Cologne is a good location for us and is in the proximity of many of our customers from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium, it's a nice city and very accessible. 2015 has been much better than London and we're surprised by the amount of international visitors attending, we've met with people from Africa, Middle East and Asia. It's not just the number of visitors that has been good, but also the quality, the right kind of people are attending the show.

Exhibiting at trade shows isn't cheap, therefore the return has to be there, and at this year's show it's there.

Ralf Roschlau, Managing Director, Foteco Remco

Fujifilm
FESPA 2015 was a very positive show for Fujifilm Europe. The quality of the visitors was very high and we took a large number of leads for products right across our extensive wide format portfolio from the mid-range Acuity series and the high-end Inca Onset platform to the euromedia consumables range. Our prominent position in what was a bustling hall meant the stand was consistently busy through the five days of the show. The wide format industry is a sector in a state of considerable transformation and this was reflected in the discussions had on our stand. Visitors were very keen to understand how the exhaustive range of applications able to be produced on our kit can help them to move into new markets and expand the products and services they are able to offer their customers.

Graham Leeson, Head of European Communications - Graphic Systems, Fujifilm Europe GmbH

Grunig + SignTronic
The position of our stand was very good as well as the organisation of the show and the split between processes on the show floor. As a machine supplier, it's important for us to exhibit at FESPA 2015. Cologne has been a great location for the show, better than London, as we've seen many more exhibitors from Central Europe. It's been a very positive show with good quality visitors.

Andreas Ferndriger, CEO - Sales & Marketing, SignTronic

Hollanders
Hollanders has had a great FESPA show in Cologne this year with highlights such as the first ColorBooster 320 machine, new machine available in Q4 and the ColorBooster 250 sold to DGS Australia becoming our representative for the Australian market.

Rowan Bloemberg, Marketing Manager, Hollanders

IIJ
The quality of the FESPA visitors to the IIJ stand was superb. All expressed genuine knowledge and interest in our technology, which, at FESPA 2015, included the worldwide launch of our XY Print 300 system. Feedback has excelled our expectations and we'll be confident of announcing some specific new customer gains soon.

John Corrall, Managing Director of IIJ

J-Teck
FESPA is always interesting for us, it's full of life and very attractive for customers and players in the market; the printing world always heads to FESPA! We have had very interesting meetings with current and prospective customers and several confirmed new business opportunities. The atmosphere this week has been lively, vivid and positive; this is our tenth year at the show and we will continue to support it.

Rosaria Pozzoni, Business Operation Manager, J-Teck3 Srl

Kernow Coatings
The show was a great success for Kernow Coatings, with visitors predominately from Europe, Australia and New Zealand meeting us on our stand. We met many previously unknown potential trading partners. We launched new and innovative products, our enhanced custom-coating capabilities, updated logo and website. Without doubt, exhibiting created excellent coverage for us at FESPA 2015, Cologne. If you want to eliminate the need to laminate, Kernow has solutions for every print device including latex, solvent, aqueous, Memjet, UV and toner systems.

Garry Hume, Business Development Manager, Kernow Coatings

Marabu, Germany
It's been a very good show for us. The size of the show is great, we can keep up-to-date with the latest technologies and see some very interesting exhibitors. Screen and textile are very big areas for us, so to see them featured at the show is very promising, especially with innovations for water-based inks. We have booked our space for Amsterdam, and think FESPA is the best-supported show within Europe.

Matthias Schieber, Product Management, Digital Inks

Mimaki
Just when you thought FESPA could not get any better, it did! We have enjoyed unprecedented interest in our 270m2 stand, adorned with applications, samples and solutions including the new TS300P-1800 inkjet printer. We're pleased to report no less than 20 per cent sales lead increase and we even had sales straight of the stand. The cherry on the FESPA cake was receiving an EDP award for the whole Mimaki CJV150/300 series as best print and cut solution on the market. The continuous and incessant popularity of FESPA lies in the show's ongoing commitment to improvement. The organisation and the expert team putting it together keep their finger on the pulse of what is currently shaping the market, enabling them to continuously identify future growth areas and opportunities, just the way Mimaki is exploring all options. This allows the show to attract new audiences enabling us to have far broader conversations with new and existing visitors who are can see for themselves just how the print production universe is growing and how Mimaki is expanding its product portfolio to accommodate both existing and emerging possibilities.

Mike Horsten, General Manager Marketing EMEA, Mimaki Europe

Mouse-PS, Bulgaria
The exhibition has been very good for us, it's our third time at FESPA, with old customers and new from across Europe. We're very satisfied with the attitude and attention we've had at the show, so much so that we've booked our space in Amsterdam for FESPA Digital 2016. We look forward to continuing our success in Amsterdam.

Ivaylo Vladimirov, Director, Mouse-PS

M&R
FESPA 2015 has been fantastic! It's been well-attended by people from all over the world - greater than expected. The calibre of the visitors has also been good - buyers and decision makers - we've had a great response at the stand. Our new digital products has been well accepted and the star of the show for us.

Richard Hoffman, Chief Executive Officer, M&R

Nagel & Hermann OG
Like everything in Germany, FESPA 2015 was very well organised and planned. The fair was very successful for us, a lot of good quality visitors.

Michael Gsteu, Sales, Nagel & Hermann OG

Natgraph
FESPA 2015 in Cologne turned out to be an unqualified success for Natgraph - good visitor numbers, fascinating discussions, many new high quality projects and a wonderful collection of orders.

Business was brisk throughout the week on the stand Natgraph shared with partners Sakurai, and the live printing demonstrations were one of the show's highlights. In fact Natgraph and Sakurai were the only stand that was printing on sheetfed products. FESPA 2015 was a fantastic show all round and exceeded our expectations in every aspect. Firstly many orders and enquiries. We also have a good number of new projects with testing to be carried out in our drying solutions centre in the coming weeks. We had an amazing end to the show, picking up two more great orders on the very last day - a high-spec Air Force/UV/IR/combination dryer and stacker from Czech Republic and four more units to Japan. Cologne will have been an important factor in 2015 being another record year for us. The show was superb, not just for Natgraph but for the industry as a whole, well done to FESPA, a job well done.

Alan Shaw, Commercial Director, Natgraph

Neschen
I've been to many FESPA shows over the years, but this is my first as an exhibitor. For us it is the flagship show to show our new products to new markets, and we have a strong presence in spite of recent events. Neschen is looking forward to returning to Amsterdam for more high quality visitors.

Richard Bachora, Head of Product Management, Neschen AG

Onyx
FESPA exceeded our expectations with good show traffic of highly qualified prospects. We used the event to profile our next software release, ONYX 12, which received extremely positive feedback from our channel, printer manufacturers and end users. I believe we will see real business benefits as a result of the show.

Kevin Murphy, President, Onyx Graphics

Polychromal
During the FESPA 2015 trade fair in Cologne, Polychromal unveiled its latest Roland-based DSE Aluprinter. This printer is specifically designed and developed for printing in open anodized aluminum, i.e. subsurface printing. The positive reactions of interested visitors during the various printer demonstrations resulted into many promising sales leads.

Martijn Vreeswijk, International Account Manager, Polychromal

Premier Textiles
We've found the show very useful and have met with repeat customers from previous FESPA events who are coming to see what's new. We've launched new textiles and substrates this year, including a new fashion range, following on from us launching new products in both London and Munich. We've also had great leads from new customers, this success has ensured that we have already signed up for FESPA Digital 2016 in Amsterdam. There's no other show in Europe where we can meet visitors from around the world who are interested in our particular niche in the market.

Mitesh Patel, Sales and Development Manager, Premier Textiles

Promic Display Systems
FESPA 2015 in Cologne was again a big success for Promic, with more than 350 contacts made. Germany is a very important market for us, and we met a lot of local customers. However we also got a lot of attention and prospects from international visitors. The central location of the Kolnmesse meant it was easy for us to continue conversations with customers over dinner. The organisation was very good, as it always is during a FESPA exhibition!

Jim Oud, Sales Manager, Promic

SAi
We had high expectations heading into FESPA and once again the show didn't disappoint. We were promoting the latest version of SAi Flexi signmaking software and our stand was rammed from the get-go. As always, it was great to not only connect with customers - some existing, some new - but also SAi's many partners and resellers. Roll on FESPA Digital 2016!

Sarit Tichon, Senior VP Worldwide Sales, SAI

Sawgrass
Once again, FESPA has proved to be the perfect venue for Sawgrass to introduce new solutions to the market. It is also a great platform for us to meet with our resellers, strategic partners and customers from around the world. The robust attendance throughout the show has definitely exceeded our expectations and is a testimony of FESPA's impact on the printing industry.

Darcy Mauro, President Consumer Division, Sawgrass

Screen Europe
FESPA was an excellent show for Screen this year. There was huge interest in the Truepress Jet W3200UV with its new roll-to-roll system and the event confirmed Screen's commitment and position as a serious supplier of innovative printers to the wide format industry globally.

Brian Filler, President, Screen Europe.

Sloan LED
This is our third time exhibiting at European Sign Expo and we've met with lots of high quality visitors. In terms of European shows, this is the best, as it also has a great international aspect about it.

Jurjen van der Honing, Managing Director, Sloan LED Europe

Special Color
Focused as ever, and international as ever. Although the printing world is reported to have ‘gone digital’, seventy percent of our business at FESPA was with conventional printers. The more digital, the more creative and the more added-value conventional becomes. Our digital customers were thrilled of course, but we haven't abandoned conventional printers. Fortunately, FESPA has not forgotten them either. We did real business with; Turkey, India, Bulgaria, Spain, Netherlands, France, Slovenia, Poland, UK, Philippines, Cambodia, Mexico, Serbia, Kuwait, Sharjah, USA, Colombia and Germany. It was a similar story for us at FESPA Digital 2014 (Munich), FESPA 2013 (London) and FESPA China 2013 (Shanghai). It was also a pleasure to educate the ten percent of casual visitors to the stand. The show has already defined, filtered, zoned, and focused who comes to the stand.

Glynn Hartley, Principal, Special Color

SunFly International Business Development Ltd
This was a very good show for us. We are excited to continue to support FESPA, and we will definitely keep exhibiting in the coming years.

John, Sales Representative, SunFly

Sun Chemical
FESPA is a key exhibition in Sun Chemical's calendar and like in London, in 2013, it was an excellent platform to introduce our new technologies to the marketplace. The Mission Control theme on our stand attracted visitors from far and wide and allowed us to generate a healthy number of new business opportunities across all parts of the business. In addition, our experts in screen, industrial and digital printing were kept busy throughout the show meeting with existing customers and prospects. Overall the exhibition was a resounding success and we look forward to the next event.

Rebecca Feay, Marketing Communications and Insight Manager EMEA, Sun Chemical

The Channel Letter Bender
European Sign Expo was an incredible show for us. In my 20 years of experience, I've never seen it so busy, with visitors from all over the world. We've made a decision to exhibit our new vacuum former machine at FESPA Africa later this year

Remko van Gellecum, Director, Channel Letter Bender

Universal Woods EMEA
FESPA 2015 was very successful for us - the quality, and number of leads was very high. Our new products and applications proved to be very impressive, as well as our demonstrations of new sublimation techniques. We're very happy, and looking forward to Amsterdam in 2016.

Eric Marichal, Sales Director EMEA, Universal Woods EMEA

Valiani
For Valiani, we have had interesting meetings with current and prospective customers and several confirmed new business opportunities. Our company is looking to expand our existing international market, we are doing well appointing new distributors from around the world. This is our fourth year at the show and we will continue to support it.

Nico Valiani, Managing Director, Valiani

© Graphic Repro On-line, FESPA Newsroom, 30 May 2015.