Googling the end of the great trade shows?

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Gone are the days that we eagerly awaited Steve Job’s Seybold keynote address to learn about Apple’s latest Mac developments. Or any prestigious trade show to find a particular piece of equipment. Three clicks on the electronic highway, and we’re in the picture. As users, we don’t wait anymore for the information we need, we look for it. And the vendors’ eagerness to sell, as well as their logistics, are such that physically comparing the latest Heidelberg Speedmaster to, say, Komori’s LS series, has become almost as easy as test driving a Maruti and a Toyota in one Sunday morning.

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• A comparison of the latest editions of the five largest commercial printing exhibitions. NB Data based on those provided by the respective show organisers. Copyright: IppStar

Apple’s innovation cycle is hardly dependent on MacWorld scheduling any more, as little as the Quark/Adobe time-to-market battle could still be limited to high-profile but low-frequency and distant-geography expos. Be they ‘B2B’ or ‘consumer’ oriented.

The classic formula Exhibition-Conference-Cocktail Party has made way for more targeted events such as specialised trade shows combined with open houses, multiple-vendor road shows followed by face-to-face appointments, and educational seminars as part of the marketing mix. Or smaller local shows, closer to the dynamics of the industry. Any of these ‘complementary’ initiatives nowadays has to compete with highly selective DM-shots, eMail blasts, catalogs, trade magazines, vendor and non-vendor training workshops, websites, webinars, podcasts, electronic newsletters, niche events…. even, lately, the so-called social networks. Or do they?

True, the Seybold show, for two decades a beacon throughout the most revolutionary period in our industry’s history, disappeared, although at some point it drew 4,000 attendees to its autumn conferences and 40,000 visitors to its trade shows, and although its reports were the most authoritative source of any of the trade publications in the graphic industry. Nexpo and CMM, longtime monopolies in their respective segments — newspapers and converting — haven’t been able to stay afloat in what is still considered to be the world’s number one economy.

For the past decade or so, the leading trade shows for commercial printers, publishers, news media producers and related professions have been struggling to keep exhibitor and visitor numbers up, both at local and international events. And although the recent financial turmoil has had an additional effect on the tightening of budgets, it’s been a while now that vendors have been slimming down their trade show presence programmatically, and quite independent of economic cycles. Just as much as the buyers, who are becoming more selective about which exhibitions to attend, and which not.

Nevertheless, year after year, book publishers don’t seem to be ready to miss out on the buzz of another Frankfurt Book Fair, no matter the costs, and no matter if they have already attended the fairs of Bologna, London, Abu Dhabi or New Delhi that same year. Every 4 years, printers all over the world are looking forward to the magic of yet another Drupa, despite the more specialised shows, or national exhibitions, or vendors’ Open Houses they may have visited in recent times. And while the organisers of exhibitions are struggling with tighter profit margins, exhibition grounds are actually being enlarged. Smaller and more focused trade fairs are sprawling across the globe, and in quite a few markets the visitor numbers are up!

Worldwide, there are some 1,100 exhibition centres, each with a minimum of 5,000 square meters of indoor capacity. During the past five years, close to US$ 20 billion have been invested in the expansion of capacities by 3.5 million square metres, from 27.6 to 31.1 million square metres of total indoor exhibition space. In China alone, exhibition space has been expanded by 18 per cent to the current 2.9 million square metres of indoor capacity, ranking China third after the USA and Germany. While Europe has some 40 per cent of these venues and 52 per cent of the total space, and North America 30 per cent of the venues and 17 per cent of the space, the Asia-Pacific region currently stands at 14 per cent of the venues and 21 per cent of the space. 

According to a study by the exhibition industry’s global association UFI, the highest increases in exhibition space are taking place in the Middle East and Russia (more than 100 per cent in the past 3 years), South Korea, Singapore, India (more than 30 per cent each), Mexico 22 per cent, China and Spain 18 per cent each, Italy 10 per cent, and the USA 8 per cent. India currently has some 320,000 square metres of indoor exhibition capacity, not counting spaces under 5,000 square metres and the numerous spaces not officially accounted for. India is thus rapidly closing in on Japan (with 404,000 square metres  representing nearly 10 per cent of Asian capacity) as Asia’s second exhibition host after China.

The world’s largest fair grounds are still concentrated in Europe and North America: Messe Hannover, Fiera Milano, Messe Frankfurt, Kölnmesse, Messe Düsseldorf, Feria Valencia, Paris Expo, McCormick Place Chicago, NEC Birmingham and Paris Nord being the only ones with indoor capacities between 200,000 and 500,000 square metres. But Asia is in the process of catching up, with places like Impact Bangkok (122,000 square metres), Singapore Expo (100,000 square metres), and the formidable Chinese facilities.

In China, with 65 per cent of Asia’s total exhibition space, there are more than 50 world-class exhibition grounds. The most important exhibition centres are Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Xiamen, Dalian, Zhuhai and Chongqing. The Shanghai New International Expo Centre, SNIEC, whose Board of Directors comprises the trade fairs of Dusseldorf, Munich and Hanover, recently doubled its capacity to over 220,000 square metres, of which more than half is indoors. Four additional fair grounds in Shanghai combine another 150,000 square metres of indoor capacity, and for the World Expo 2010, which is to be held from May to October in Shanghai, an entirely new exhibition complex covering 5 million square metres of land has been knocked out of the soil. With 7 major exhibition plazas, Beijing has a total indoor capacity of  300,000 square metres, including the China International Exhibition Centre whose indoor capacity was tripled from 60,000 to 200,000 square metres for the Olympic year 2008. With over 250,000 square metres of indoor space, Guangzhou in the South also has one of the largest concentrations in the country, including the brand new 150,000 square metre Guangzhou International Convention and Exhibition Centre. Benefiting from its proximity to Hong Kong, Shenzhen has a combined indoor capacity of over 150,000 square metres divided over two modern venues. Provincial capitals such as Chengdu, Shenyang, Nanjing and Wuhan are also rapidly expanding their exhibition capacity.

For trade events to be successful however, size doesn’t always matter. The vast majority (62 per cent) of the 1,100 exhibition centres mentioned earlier are between 5,000 and 20,000 square metres, hosting some of the best trade shows in the world. Another 23 per cent measure between 20,000 and 50,000 square metres, and 10 per cent between 50,000 and 100,000 square metres. The remaining 5 per cent of venues have indoor space exceeding 100,000 square metres — in total less than 60 fair grounds worldwide. Of these 70 per cent are located in Europe, 20 per cent in Asia, and 8 per cent in North America, with one such facility in the Middle East.

Book fairs
For publishing professionals, Book Expo America, the London Book Fair, and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair are important annual venues, even when they’re small compared to the Frankfurt Book Fair, and they’re struggling to remain profitable. In contrast, more locally oriented fairs tend to draw large numbers from the general public, while often using less exhibition space for a longer period of time. Data from 10 years of research by IppStar show that the Frankfurt Book Fair has been able to keep both exhibitor and visitor numbers stable over the past decade, albeit at the cost of decreasing returns and by increasing marketing as well as restructuring efforts. Reduced from 6 to 5 days a few years ago, the show consistently attracts an average of 6,800 exhibitors and 280,000 visitors, of which there are more than 180,000 trade visitors, year after year.

On 3 days each, BEA and LBF attract, on average, 1,600 exhibitors and 20,000 to 25,000 visitors, half of whom are trade visitors. Bologna, as a niche fair, consistently brings together 1,200 exhibitors and 4,600 professional visitors every year. Book fairs directly interacting with the general public, such as Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Leipzig, Beijing and many other ones, easily attain visitor numbers between 50,000 and 200,000, with exhibitor numbers oscillating between 300 and 2,000, whereas Kolkata with 500 exhibitors and the New Delhi World Book Fair with 1,300 exhibitors seem to attract more than a million attendees each, in a time frame of 9 to 12 days.

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• Founder Digital of Beijing at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2009

Print exhibitions
Similar to the international book fairs, the major print-related exhibitions have been compelled to diversify and integrate wider segments into their shows. Not until the past decade or so, packaging has become part and parcel of every general printing show. Exhibitions previously centred around commercial printing have either included packaging solutions, mostly close to their finishing pavilions, or are holding their shows concurrently with the packaging and converting exhibitions. Events on newspaper production have merged with those covering other media and have helped the industry refocus its business models towards multiple platforms. Digital technologies have entered every segment of printing, publishing and packaging, resulting in growing overlaps for the exhibiting manufacturers and vendors.

International fairs related to print production include those considered to be the ‘Big Five’ for commercial printing in Dusseldorf, Tokyo, Beijing, Chicago and Birmingham, next to Fespa for wide format, screen and textile printing, Ifra for media production, Photokina and its subsidiaries for imaging, Interpack and Emballage for packaging, Labelexpo for narrow web flexo, and many shows targeting particular regional, national or local markets.

Based on IppStar’s research, we are saying that these fairs have been more vulnerable to changes in the market than the book fairs. Competition and consolidation have been hitting the trade fairs as much as their customers, and are having a decisive impact on the larger international shows. Globalisation appears to favour the strengthening of some of the local exhibitions, with a clear shift towards the emerging markets, including increasingly serious printing exhibitions in Latin America, Asia, Turkey and the Middle East, and international show organisers moving into these areas.

Whereas two weeks of Drupa with varying exhibitor numbers between 1,600 and 1,900 attract a slightly declining but still steady stream of just under 400,000 visitors every 4 years, and InterPack in the same exhibition grounds with more than 2,600 exhibitors some 170,000 to 180,000 visitors over a week every 3 years, only China Print, IGAS Tokyo and the more specialised fairs Photokina and Emballage are still reaching similar visitor numbers, i.e., 100,000 to 160,000. 

IPEX with 1,200, Grafitalia-Converflex with 950, All-in-Print Shanghai with 650, and GraphExpo and Print Chicago with 600-700 exhibitors, are in the 20,000 to 50,000 visitors category. Most of the regional and national fairs are moving between 300 and 500 exhibitors, and between 10,000 and 40,000 visitors. Important segment-specific shows such as LabelExpo, Fespa, Ifra and ICE are fetching exhibitor numbers between 300 and 600, and visitor numbers between 5,000 and 25,000.

IPEX singing the trade show blues
For the next big print show lining up this year, IPEX, we expect tough times ahead. Our research indicates that, although roughly 40 per cent of the visitors attending the 2006 show still came from outside the UK, including nearly 1,100 visitors from India, the total numbers both on the exhibitor and the visitor side have been declining hand over fist for the past 12 years: 1,500 — 1,240 — 1,174 and 91,600 — 65,400 — 52,400, respectively. Despite enormous efforts, IPEX has not been able to fill NEC Birmingham’s full capacity. Comparing the latest editions of IPEX and Drupa, we see that IPEX, with about 60 per cent of Drupa’s exhibitors, only attracted 13 per cent of Drupa’s visitor numbers and 9 per cent of its amount of overseas visitors, while Drupa’s visitor/exhibitor and visitor/surface ratios were 5 times higher. Although we have to keep in mind that IPEX is held on 8 days while Drupa takes place on 14 days, the shorter duration could be another disincentive in attempting to show running machinery which is very expensive and has become the de facto benchmark of print shows.

In 2006, we saw international vendors attending IPEX mainly for their UK reach, as they do at the national fairs in France, Canada and elsewhere, leaving most of the organisation to their local representatives. This year, in a general move to slimming down costs, several vendors are refraining from bringing in running equipment. We actually think IPEX may survive as the national reference fair for the UK, but is bound to lose its significance as an international show. As much as that may be regretted, there isn’t too much room for superlative events anymore. And — Birmingham is just too far away from where the action is.

We expect Drupa to remain the international fair par excellence for some time to come, because of its history and implantation in the German, West and East European markets as well the interest in these markets for the Asian and North American manufacturers. We wonder, however, how long Heidelberg, after last year’s tribulations, will be able to maintain its exclusive position as the number one Drupa exhibitor. HP for instance, has already said that it expects its graphic arts divisions to be larger than Heidelberg by the time of Drupa 2012.

IGAS Tokyo and China Print can be considered regional fairs, important for the Asian manufacturers and for the Asian markets in general. Last year we wrote that China Print had become the second-largest fair in the world considering its number of exhibitors, and the busiest fair in terms of repeat visitors, but its international or pan-Asian reach is still limited. We also said that we don’t expect China Print 2013 to be larger than Drupa 2012.

Print Chicago, the smallest of the ‘Big Five’, has never really been a more international show than its Graph Expo interludes. With less than 14 per cent overseas visitors (including Canadians), both are and will most likely remain pitched for the North American market. Latin Americans have been attending  the Graphics of the Americas fair in Miami in larger numbers than the Chicago fairs, and are now increasingly turning to their own fairs in Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere. Similarly, IPEX will have to reorient its focus, as many of its traditional attendees from both continental Europe and the Commonwealth have turned their back on Birmingham as part of their company’s cost-cutting measures.

At any rate, one of the more general trends visibly shaping up is that high-profile fairs are becoming less important for buying decisions, leaving room for more localised and more focused smaller fairs, as relationships between buyers and their suppliers are becoming more complex, and large fairs are losing their historical cost-per-prospect advantage. Increasingly, vendors are organising their own shows, or compact and lean events such as the Hunkeler Innovation days, where a small number of manufacturers is brought together to show end-to-end solutions at minimised costs, obtaining higher returns on their — limited — investments.

Although twenty years of Internet development have driven some of these trends, it’s not really Google that’s putting the squeeze on the trade shows. The fact that product information has become more accessible, has not done away with the need for the physical interaction at trade shows, among other occasions. But, with more choices widely available, the buyers have become more demanding. They will be more reluctant and more critical, before deciding on attending an event. They literally want to have more bang for their buck, and that means: they want to have value for money, they want to have a good time, and — they want to learn.

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