PrintingNews.com

Greetings from Düsseldorf, Germany! As I write this, I'm here at the drupa trade fair, the largest print and graphics show, held every four years. This has been my first drupa, and I'm pleased to confirm all the rumors: by day three I realized it's a whole lot bigger than I expected, even with all the hype and warnings from colleagues.

That being said, the massiveness of the show isn't just in the square feet of booth space, or the number of halls. It's also in the announcements and technology demos. It's not only a look at the cutting-edge equipment, software, and media available today, it's a preview of what this industry could look like one, two, five, or 10 years down the road. It just doesn't get more exciting than this, folks.

Here are a few basic statistics to give you some perspective:

• 1,971 exhibitors from 52 countries
• 1,884,000 square feet of exhibition area spanning 17 halls
• An anticipated 400,000 attendees over the course of the two-week event, from countries around the globe

"What the Olympic Games are to sportsmen and women, drupa is to the print media industry," said Werner Dornscheidt, president and CEO of Messe Düsseldorf.

The Digital Drupa

Before the show, it was touted in many places that this was going to be the "inkjet" or "digital" drupa. And while traditional print technologies were present en force, digital definitely gained ground, and was making the most and largest waves.

The digital exhibitors expanded by more than 100,000 square feet of floor space this year, for a total of 366,000 of the total square footage devoted to it.
A few of the largest announcements in this area were glimpses into the future by some of the major manufacturers. Some of the biggest technology demos that were making big waves came from Xerox, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, and EFI Vutek.

Inks, Presses, and iGens—Oh My

While still in the early stages of development, and probably several years out from any kind of commercial product, Xerox was talking about a new ink technology it's working on for the next generation of inkjet. Calling it a "cured gel" ink, the goal is to combine the best features of solid toner inks and water-based inkjet inks.

The new ink will be able to print on a much wider variety of substrates, with much higher quality than many inkjet inks today. The company was displaying samples printed with an early version of the ink on substrates such as aluminum and thin sheets of plastic, with very crisp lines and nice density. While still in the R&D phase, this product has a lot of potential, and is definitely something to keep an eye on as the firm refines and perfects it.