virtual.drupa 2021

Drupa 2020 never happened, and drupa 2021 fell victim to the pandemic as well—but was transformed into a virtual drupa. European section editor Ralf Schlözer attended and provides an overview, some highlights and overall impressions from virtual.drupa 2021. 

Virtual.drupa 2021

Drupa, the most anticipated event of the printing industry, fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic—not only once, but twice. To keep up the momentum, drupa organizers replaced the on-site drupa with a four-day virtual event running last April 20-23. All conceded that it would be an experiment. After all, a virtual event is almost the opposite of the live, meet-and-greet drupa we all know and love. 

After live trade shows garnered a lot of criticism lately—besides COVID-19 making live events impossible—virtual.drupa should have been a good benchmark on how virtual events could replace the live versions. Drupa has an invaluable head start on many other virtual activities due to their strong brand name and almost guaranteed media coverage.

To turn the virtual event into an experience, drupa's three main sections were laid out as an exhibition space, networking plaza and conference area.

The Conference Area

The conference area is probably the easiest one to imagine—after all, the last 15 months have been full of webinars. The sessions fell into two groups: vendor presentations (mostly on products) and educational sessions. Each day sported two themes for the educational conference sessions. Alternating, these included: AI, circular economy, platform economy and connected consumers. General overview presentations on the topics alternated with certain print industry-related aspects and applications in print. While the overview presentations featured experts from outside the print industry, many of the other sessions were held by industry suppliers, and too often this turned into a company presentation.

The other part of the program were vendor presentations. Again, the sheer number made it impossible to listen to all of them, although there will be replays available. Somewhat remarkable was the lack of product news. With the print industry continuing to innovate, there could have been more launches, product upgrades or company initiatives. Mostly presenters reiterated features of products already on the market, which can be helpful, but offered little new content. Still, there were some interesting product launches:

• EFI MCORR 1300 
  As the name suggests, the MCORR 1300 is for corrugated print. Like the Nozomi, the MCORR uses UV inkjet, but as a scanning head device. With about a sixth of the throughput and a smaller format, the MCORR is a more affordable, entry-level model compared to the Nozomi. The same inkset, options for orange, violet and white, and the same color space do make the output quite comparable. 
• Fujifilm JetPress 750S High Speed
  The high-speed version raised the speed by 50% to 5,400 sheets/hour. Fujifilm did not want to share a lot of detail besides the speed increase. It will be an option or upgrade, and should become widely available in autumn this year. 
• Olbrich and Ricoh 
  Olbrich, a manufacturer of specialty décor presses, presented their joint development with Ricoh: a webfed inkjet printer for vinyl wallcoverings and flooring. This huge press is targeted at the high end of the market. 
•  Comexi D4   
  Flexible packaging press manufacturer Comexi upped their digital offerings and provided two new solutions. The Digiflex inline inkjet bar is to be installed on flexo presses, laminators and slitters. It uses low-migration UV inks and runs at up to 250 m/min. There will be a whole flexible packaging inkjet press as well. The Comexi D4 inkjet press uses water-based inks in contrast to the Digiflex. It will be configurable from four to eight colors with CMYK plus OGV and white. This press will print at speeds of 75 m/min (246 ft/min) and 150 m/min (492 ft/min) with a high- or low-resolution respectively. For both systems, development partners are Sun Chemical for inks, Fujifilm for inkjet heads and Meteor Inkjet for integration. While the Digiflex will go beta in a few weeks and become fully available in October, the D4 is still more than a year out. 

The lack of product launches, traditionally the hallmark of drupa, does not bode well for that type of virtual trade show. With industry heavyweights like Canon, Ricoh or Xerox not even taking part—although some product launches are expected this year—the event was missing attractive options. 

Virtual Exhibition Space

In contrast to some virtual events, the virtual.drupa exhibition space felt quite basic. Either you were linked back to the vendor presentations, or went down long lists of names, products and services.  

The navigation proved to be challenging. On my count, the listing included 3,823 exhibits, due to the fact that every product and even some service offerings got their own entry. Clever exhibitors put an exclamation mark in front of their product or exhibit, giving them the top spots of the listings. There were a number of filters, although with so many entries for every vendor, it still felt unwieldly. There were no virtual booths, VR or other innovative things—mostly product sheets and occasional videos.

Networking and Matchmaking

A good idea, given the lack of personal interaction between attendees, was the matchmaking feature. The mechanics did not seem to be overly complex, and it was possible to search and filter for other attendees, signal interest (they could, as well), and initiate a chat or call. 

Initiating a conversation with unfamiliar persons was still a bit awkward, not knowing what their field of expertise or interests were. For me, the matchmaking function did not work out well. Some of the people I wanted to catch up with after presentations were not on the list, and others did not get back to me. In contrast, with attendees showing interest in contacting me, it too often felt like another form of cold calling. It might have helped to state in a few words why a person wanted to network before confirming a contact.

Basically, virtual networking is a good concept but there should be other ways to get attendees together. Other events showed a variety of approaches to get attendees to connect and discuss relevant topics, so there is room for improvement. The contact with other attendees was definitely missed compared to a live trade show, be it for exchanging views, tips on news, or the additional information complementing the vendor presentations. 

The Future of Virtual Trade Shows

The good news first: the website technology mostly worked well. The live streams had some small interruptions. Occasional screen sharing and presentation issues were on a level we are used to. Navigation on the site remained a bit challenging, however—like navigating 18 halls of drupa without an exhibitor guide.

Messe Düsseldorf organizers presented some impressive stats in their press releases issued after the last day: 45,000 unique users were counted with more than 82% being international visitors. More than 250 vendor and conference web sessions were held. The web sessions had an average of 140 participants, which is small in comparison to the total visitors, but impressive for a web event. Obviously, the organizers were upbeat about the event, although exhibitor feedback has not been published.

The nice thing about trade shows is that you stumble across new companies and unexpected solutions. This is much tougher in a virtual trade show. With so many presentations in four days, the focus remained on the suppliers and people you knew. There was simply not enough time to listen to all the potential presentations and listings. There were nuggets, but finding them by trial-and-error was very time consuming. At a live trade show, you can wander the aisle in a spare minute or on the way to another booth, which seems more efficient to me than browsing a digital directory. Having a look at a booth tells a lot more in less time than a web directory. At virtual.drupa there were a few chance encounters to be had through the exhibitor list or the matchmaking, although this was much less likely.

Wrapping up, I am not sure whether virtual trade shows are the future or are able to take a central role of supplier-customer communications. With more trial and feedback from outside experts, events surely could be improved further. Being easily overlooked, I feel, small vendors have little to gain, while the bigger ones are likely to focus on their own events, be they live or virtual.

There might be a few benefits of digital trade shows:

• Print is getting more global, so virtual events make more sense for attendees from remote regions.
• They reduce the carbon footprint.
• It's a lower cost for exhibitors.
• There is good access to seminars and conference programs (if made well).

For those still seeing the benefit in onsite events, the good news is that drupa 2024 is already scheduled for May 28 to June 7. For me, having a direct look at devices and print output is irreplaceable, as are in-depth discussions with suppliers and visitors. However, in the end, printers need to be satisfied with virtual events. If you attended virtual.drupa or planned to, please let us know what your experience was like. 

And for all those really wanting to know: yes, there was a new drupa song (https://vimeo.com/539104105).