The state of the industry in the drupa year

Last year’s decision to change the drupa cycle from four to three years may be considered a sign of optimism, but it may just as well be one of necessity. Both four- and three-year cycles have drupa and interpack coincide at some point, so whether this requires shuffling with dates or not, purely depends on cost-benefit assessments undertaken by Messe Düsseldorf and its exhibiting partners. In the first fifty years of its existence, drupa frequencies were rapidly moving from three and four to five year intervals, until the year 2000, when the four-year cycle was reintroduced. For the past ten years, most of the world has been dragging from one economic crisis to the other, and major machine builders and software developers are under increasing pressure to respond to market demands or create new ones. For them, trade shows still play an important role in marketing their products in time and orienting customers in their search for technology-driven business opportunities. This drupa is supposed to be the third ‘inkjet-drupa’ and the fifth overwhelmingly determined by…

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