2012 was a horrendous travel year for many of us, mostly due to drupa and related events.  It was a bit disconcerting to see the drupa announcement that the board, upon the recommendation of Manuel Mataré, retiring director of the drupa and digi:media trade fairs, that the event be moved to a 3-year cycle beginning in 2015.  I have the greatest respect for Mr. Mataré, have enjoyed meeting with him and interviewing him over the years, and he will be missed. He and his team have done great work with this important global trade show, and as I, and many of my colleagues in the press, have written, 2012 was a great show.

But moving to a 3-year cycle? I checked in with the fine folks at Messe Düsseldorf to see if they had any additional comments beyond what is posted on their site as of this writing and was informed that while they would be happy to talk with me, they wouldn't really be able to say much more than was posted there, including the fact that the proposal will be considered by the drupa committee on November 2 with an announcement about the decision due the following week.

I reached out to a sampling of exhibitors, attendees, journalists and analysts to see what their thoughts were about such a move. While I realize it is a small sampling compared to the number of exhibitors drupa generally attracts, of the nearly 20 folks I reached out to, the overwhelming response was that such a move would be a mistake.  In fact, several suggested returning to a 5-year cycle.

Let's start with Heidelberg, who has traditionally occupied Buildings 1 and 2 at the show (although Building 2 had only Heidelberg partners in 2012).  Already located in Germany, the show is probably the most convenient and cost-effective for them, as compared to many other exhibitors who must ship equipment long distances and perhaps put more people up in hotels. Adriana Nuneva, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing & Communications, said, "We see that drupa will keep its international industry leading character. But we will focus on trade shows in Emerging Markets like China and Brazil as well. A 4-year drupa cycle fits perfectly to our approach to meet changing customer demands in industrial countries as well as in emerging countries and clearly supports major product development cycles in our industry of 4-5 years."

This sentiment was echoed by others as well.  HP, who had the largest stand at drupa 2012, and who has already indicated the company will not attend Ipex 2014 in favor of more focused regional events, doesn't support this proposition, either.  Sumeer Chandra, the Worldwide Marketing & Strategy VP for Graphic Solutions Business at HP, said, "We don't support the move. From a product development perspective, drupa is a place where we want to bring major platform announcements, not small tweaks and improvements. It is the grandest stage in the industry, and we want to roll out disruptive platforms.  Our platform cycles are four to five years long, and we are not alone in that.  Consider the number of exhibitors that announced products they won't even be selling for a couple of years.  The second reason is financial. We spend an order of magnitude more on drupa than any other trade show. If the show company wants vendors to do this every three years, and they don't have the fundamental new products to show, they are likely to have a lesser stand and a poor experience for visitors."

Chandra was not in favor of a move to a 5-year cycle either, adding, "Worldwide shows don't draw the same level of audience anymore, which is part of the reason we chose not to participate in Ipex and focus on regional events instead.  HP can sustain only one worldwide show, and it has to be every four years.  Otherwise it doesn't support our objectives and process. Fewer days every four years would be fine with us, though!"

Xerox was on the fence, but stressed the importance of gathering feedback from both exhibitors and attendees prior to making such a decision.

Océ's Vice President of Marketing, Francis McMahon, commented, "drupa is the time to show new, and we all work hard in R&D to hit the 'drupa Olympics.' If we move drupa up by one year, will manufacturers be able to carve a year off their product development cycles to bring really innovative products to market? If the answer is no, then the value of drupa declines…I am not sure I would invest our marketing dollars as aggressively in drupa if it goes every 3 years when we find other events [local customer events] to be as valuable-for different reasons."

Others questioned the reasoning behind the proposed change, wondering whether drupa was truly putting the interests of the industry first. Brian Wolfenden, Director of Marketing at Presstek, said, "I do not see any reason why this proposed change would be a good thing for the industry. It will simply place unnecessary strain on vendors and diminish the value of the show in the long run. Attendance at drupa 2012 was down; do they really think more people will attend if they have it every three years? Let's make it 10 days once every four to five years.

Hunkeler, which has its own well-attended Hunkeler Innovation Days carefully placed in non-Ipex, non-drupa years, is also a strong advocate for continuing the 4-year drupa cycle, with its CEO Stefan Hunkeler saying, "This aligns with the major technology development cycles and the overall tradeshow investment plans. I doubt if there is sufficient customer appetite for this large international event more often than every four years…If drupa does switch to a 3-year cycle, Hunkeler's plans beyond 2013 must be reconsidered."

The one dissenter I spoke with from the exhibitor community was Tom O'Connor, CEO of Mohawk, who favored the move to a 3-year cycle, saying, "I understand the expense, but speaking purely as a CEO of an entrepreneurial company that wants to stay on the cutting edge and wants to say involved, we think it is worth the expense.  Of course, I don't have to take a printing press and spend a million dollars."

Trevor Crawford, Director of the Print + Media Group for Informa Exhibitions, which is the Ipex show company, didn't specifically comment on the proposed change, but echoed the sentiment that show organizers should be focusing all their efforts on creating compelling attractive and valuable events that add real value for both parties, and avoid planning events that are based on the convenience of their own event portfolio and increasing revenues, saying, "Our mindset has always been on what the industry needs first and foremost, hence why Ipex has commissioned a global market study, to really understand what print, media and communication industry challenges and requirements are. We will be reporting the findings of this in December."

These are exhibitors, but what about attendees?  My sample here is really small, considering that more than 300,000 people attended the show in 2012, but I didn't hear anyone say there was a compelling reason to make the change.  Tim Flaman, VP of Marketing & Online Business Solutions for West Canadian Digital Imaging, commented, "I went to my first drupa this year and can't see how every 3 years would be beneficial. I didn't see enough new stuff to make me think I would go back in another 4 years. As an attendee, it seems more efficient and effective to go to more specific shows like DSCOOP, SGIA, and Graph Expo."

Carl Gerhardt, Chairman and former CEO of the Allegra Network also saw no compelling reason for the move, especially from a North American perspective. He said, "Suppliers seem to be focusing sales budgets more on their own demonstration facilities and target marketing to key prospects at those facilities instead of shows. The huge expense that comes with drupa only puts more pressure on an already stressed field of industry suppliers. Holding the event more often would cause amortizing the expense over three years instead of four years only adds to that pressure." As for Allegra franchisees?  Gerhardt says, "They count on us to attend for them and report back with the information that they need to know." He points to events like Dscoop, EFI Connect, PODi and franchise conferences as perhaps more valuable, saying, "Too many events and too little time to attend."

Jack Glacken of Today's Graphics in Philadelphia pointed out that most equipment financing is only three years these days, and he would likely attend a drupa every three years, but did recognize that exhibitors have more at stake with costs.

A print buyer at one of the larger international players, who wished to remain anonymous, also felt a shorter cycle would be too much of a burden on exhibitors.

The analyst/journalist community also weighed in. Alex van Bienen wondered whether moving to a 3-year cycle would not only do in Ipex and Print, but drupa itself. Jim Hamilton of InfoTrends wrote a blog posting on the subject, entitled "Having drupa every three years is a bad idea." You can check it out to get the rest of the details on his reasoning.

David Zwang of Zwang & Co., commented, "The real question is how often do we need an international/regional show, in light of the increasingly global nature of business and communication. A show in Germany every three years seems a bit much, as long as Ipex and Graph Expo still exist, especially since the Ipex and drupa audiences have significant overlap…Add to that the specialty shows for Packaging, Signage, etc., and vendors and attendee prospects are getting too divided to justify them all."

And an article of this nature would be much less valuable without input from Frank Romano, who has dedicated his life to the printing industry in various roles, including professor, consultant, advocate and author. He said, "I think drupa is an important show and it should not dilute its effectiveness. A 3-year cycle for drupa would not be fair to many exhibitors. Small and medium suppliers would not have the budgets to cover more shows. The way things are going, large companies would not have the budgets either. . The Print-Ipex-drupa cycle has done a good job and should continue. Ipex will succeed because the UK is a major market and because many print professionals worldwide see London as more of a mecca. And if you want to sell into the U.S. market, you'd better be at Print.  But it is predicted that the largest printing events will be in China. Each show has its strengths and each helps to bring buyers and sellers together."

As for me, a 3-year cycle would not be high on my list, either. As Ralph Nappi well knows, I think Graph Expo (or Print) should run on a 2-year cycle instead of every year. I also agree with Frank Romano's comment, "The answer is not to have more of them [drupa shows] but to make them shorter. I am not in favor of paying exorbitant hotel rates every 3 years. Every 4 years is bad enough."

The printing world awaits the drupa committee decision. I hope this article provides some insight from important drupa stakeholders that may, or may not, already have been communicated.