Impressed by Impressions at FESPA2015 in Cologne

By Andreas Weber

It is always good to think and act outside the box! Isn’t it?

My spontaneous trip to Cologne to visit #FESPA2015 was amazing. Many good friends and business partners, a whole bunch of presentations, business talks and news were leading the way. It was the very first time this year to see, that the Print Community is still alive and has a good future. BUT: FESPA2015 stands for a sophisticated form of Print applications. Large Format, Sign and Display, Screen Printing are key element of everything which makes Print BIG!

Most surprising:

• First of all, and sorry to say: The way, most of the exhibitors presented their stands was not so nice to look at. Old school booth design, always the same key messages like „better“, „faster“, „wider“ (bla bla)…
• Much better: personal talks and some of the press conferences. Beside efi…
• Really surprising: the presence of Zünd Systemtechnik AG, http://www.zund.com/, very high-tech, driven by the art of engineering and swiss made precision. And (my personal favorite): Durst Phototechnik AG, http://www.durst.it/en/, introducing Durst Water Technology in a very smart way: intelligent, emotional, interactive. They even organized and hosted a great evening event at Rheinterassen with a big surprise in a lovely atmosphere. Very well done!
• Impressive as well how HP’s Graphic Solutions Business took the lead. Specially driven by its Latex technology.

Many others, like Canon, Screen, Epson, 3M and Agfa showed a strong approach to innovate this enhanced form of print communication.Good. Excellent. Extraordinary.

Three additional aspects:

1. It was fascinating to see, how Output One, the first printed magazine of James ‘M-P’ Matthews-Paul, got presented. Good job. Very well done. (The copies were handed out personally, all of them digitally printed on HP Indigo 10000).
2. All those avant-garde innovators at #FESPA2015 are in a good mood, highly motivated to transform the industry. But there is still a lot to do, according to our latest Value Report on „Print is dead? Long live print!“ — So we have to proceed.
3. Last but not least: We had many good conversation on how to get the industries messages across in a more effective way. So the XMPie Users Group Initiative, the first european Multi-Channel Innovation conference was selected as a good opportunity to follow up the FESPA2015 trade show on May 26, 2015 in Berlin!

There were many other interesting aspects to talk about. Please check it out on your own via our ValueCommAG Storify report.