Cary Sherburne: Hi, I'm Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and I'm here with Manuel Matare, the director from Drupa and gosh, we’re in February of 2011 and you’re promoting Drupa.

Manuel Mataré: Yes.

Cary: We’re not ready to think about it yet.

Manuel: It’s never too late to think about Drupa. It’s another 450 days roughly speaking and that will be fast. It’s in May and as you said quite rightly, that’s another 15 months and time passes fast and lots and lots of preparations have to be done by each and everyone.

Cary: And we’re still in Sparkle Season then.

Manuel: Of course. Of course, that’s why we never change our winning team. Drupa has always been—you know by the way, this year, 23rd of May will be 60 years of Drupa history and we has been around or has been around much longer than that.

Cary: That’s right. So what can we expect kind of new and different? I mean last year was—or last time was tag the inkjet Drupa and before that I guess it was the digital Drupa. What are we looking for this time?

Manuel: We are looking at another great Drupa. We are looking at another 14 days of great experiences as Drupa. You know the funny thing is sometimes these names they have come up only very shortly prior to Drupa and no, I wouldn’t be able to tell you today if there is going to be a name, a topic in 15 months time. Possibly the industry is in a more consecutive change nowadays than it was possibly 10, 15 or 20 years ago. Yes, there were some big steps forward. Drupa once again, will show some very brand new, state of the art or state of the art to be technologies, but my feeling in a certain way is that yes, there was a big move as far as Drupa 2088 was concerned compared to 2004 or 2000. I believe it has become somewhat stable now. The digital world has arrived at Drupa 2008. Yes, there will be steps forward in 12, but let’s wait and see whether there is a big, big development as far as technology is concerned.

On the other side, Drupa has always and will reflect the changes within the industry. We reflect for the industry wants and needs and sometimes hopes to achieve and we will see that in May of 2012. Yes, there will be some new players to the game, to the show. There will be some new major exhibitors. One the other side there will be quite a stable situation. There is not that many companies, new companies around that are very big and when we talk about Drupa and size of Drupa and size of exhibitors you and your friends, your readers, your partners they all know what that means, so really on the horizon we don’t see any companies that occupy half of a hall or full hall which are brand new to the show.

However, there are some companies, especially also from the US. I know of one company that have been around at Drupa now for the—it will be their third time and they were there. Drupa size is small, 50 square meters. They are going to increase to 500. That is 10 times the size. Now size doesn’t make everything, but someone who increases 10 times is big. That is a major undertaking and that shows how successful they must have been at Drupa 2004 and at Drupa 2008. That is why they are doing this exercise and that is why they are going and they want to go through this, some people call it a hardship to go for 14 days plus all the planning and all these things. Yes, there has always been changes and there will be changes at Drupa 2004.

One other big thing which I think is important for all of us. Drupa is always a show where equipment, be it very big, be it midsized or be it small equipment has been there on display and in operation and you and we will all see this once again. We will not see a single company that has major equipment that does not display it. Yes, we were eager to learn that. We were eager to discuss this with a number of major parties around the world that have gone to a show, to one or the other show somewhere around the world and have not displayed major equipment. We believe a tradeshow and especially a tradeshow of the size of Drupa is something that has to be tangible. People want to grab the machine or otherwise they can to the net. They can go to WhatTheyThink.com and see it there, look at it, even ask questions, but the one thing they can’t do is touch it and feel it.

Cary: So in terms of the physical plant messages are there any new buildings or is that sort of we still have up to 19 and we have the transportation center we had last time? That was very nice.

Manuel: Of course again, there is always changes at Drupa, but indeed yes, it’s the very first time in history of Drupa that we will have not a growth factor as far as square meters, new halls, new ground floor is concerned. That is not that we don’t believe in the future of print media, but we operate some 40 plus shows in more than 20 out of them are global leading tradeshows or leading global tradeshows and they have all reached a size which is sufficient and there is only so much our customers, our friends, our visitors can cope and can manage, so we—right now we don’t believe in a further growth factor as far as the hardware is concerned, but we’re still investing a lot of money into the existing infrastructure. As you just mentioned, the transportation center was brand new. What you will see for Drupa 2012 most likely one of the biggest changes yes, we have a total new entrance system, yes, especially for the visitors from overseas. The Anglo-Saxons as I always say, yes, they will experience for the very first time badges. Yes, we will have turn-styles. We will have three dimensional barcode readers, so there will be badges. We’ll see brand new hardware spending a lot of money in the—as I said in the existing infrastructure. Hall five is brand new. Hall four will be brand new. Not a square meter, not a square inch larger-

Cary: But all refreshed.

Manuel: Zillions of square ideas, better and more functional state of the art. We always say a Mercedes, a Cadillac, a Buick they are nice cars. They are fantastic cars, but every 20 years you may need to change the upholstery in the car. The body is still fine. The engine may be fantastic. The air conditioning works.

Cary: But the upholstery is a mess.

Manuel: But the upholstery needs some kind of redoing and that’s what we’re doing right now in some of the halls.

Cary: Well thank you very much for getting us ready for Drupa.

Manuel: Pleasure. Well thank you for having and best regards to all your followers. Read us, listen to us and see you in 400 plus days in Dusseldörf Germany.