(This week, WhatTheyThink is “reprinting” some key articles from 2023. This article originally appeared on September 19. Look for our regular publishing schedule to resume on Monday.)

LabelExpo Europe is the biggest of all the Label Expo events and truly a global event. Under normal circumstances, it is held every other year, with the US event held in the even years. However, the global pandemic took precedence and this was the first LabelExpo Europe since 2019. The event filled nine halls or about 36.588 sq. m of floor space. As a result, it was a very active event, even with drupa on the horizon. 

Being a global event, there were attendees from over 140 countries, with the top 10 country attendees being from Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Poland, India and Türkiye. There were approximately 637 exhibitors from all over the world, with a surprising and increasing amount from China. In fact, about 23% (by my calculation) of the exhibitors were from China. These included both equipment and consumables manufacturers. While I noticed a presence of Chinese manufacturers at LabelExpo US last year, this year’s showing was more than I expected and covered a wide range of hardware including, flexo, offset, inkjet, embellishment, converting, etc. It will be interesting to see their footprint at drupa next year.