New customers, new orders: at viscom 2016 new success stories are written – like that of Tobias Kuttner. The 46-year old Berliner produces high-quality, finished printed packaging – and this goes down really well. The customer base of “paper addicts”, the company that has only been on the market since 2014, includes such automotive “heavyweights” as BMW and Volkswagen. At viscom 2016 orders and enquiries from the food industry, publishing and Swiss Jewellery manufacturers joined the fray.
Many of the 307 exhibitors (325 at the previous event) who came from 29 countries to the anniversary event in Frankfurt shared this experience with Tobias Kuttner. Established as a meeting point for advertis
ing technology, light advertising and textile finishing 30 years ago, this trade fair has developed into an event that touches both worlds under the motto “we connect” as a result of technology developments in digital printing and the digital revolution in visual communication. With a total of 9,184 trade visitors, however, viscom fell short of the previous fair’s level due to 2016 being an eventful trade fair year with drupa only taking place every four years (10,064).
Trade visitors from 71 nations came to this year’s viscom. In addition to the core Western European countries, visitors from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia were also particularly well represented. But even non-European customers – especially from the USA, Japan and the Arab region – were disproportionately well represented with a share of just under 10%. The fact that viscom is even worth travelling to from such far-away destinations as South Africa, is underscored by Ignace van Goethem, Managing Director at Geneva AD Display Systems: “viscom 2016 particularly stands out with its technical innovations. Ranking first for me this year are the machinery innovations in the laser-cutting and textile printing segments.”
However, viscom is also becoming more and more attractive in the interior design field, as Sylvana Albayrak of Procédés Chénel from France highlights: “We had many advertising and communication agencies, shop fitters, decorators and designers visiting our stand. Some of these visitors approached us with very concrete projects and we are already busy planning the ceiling designs for two stores.”
“Be it large-format digital printing, textile advertising banners, displays at the POS, high-quality finish printed packaging or virtually staged product presentations – viscom impressively unites advertising practice and the world of visual brand communication under one roof,” says viscom Director Petra Lassahn, who has been managing the international trade fair for visual communication since 2006. Technical innovations in digital printing, creative inspirations and information dissemination in a know-how transfer format and workshops are in the foreground here.
This is a form of market transparency that is received very well by trade visitors, as Sheldon S. Nazaré of “RING Grafischer Fachhändler” in Cologne stresses: “As a representative of the printing industry including digital and 3D printing, viscom is THE networking platform for me. I don’t have to travel the world but can meet all contacts of importance to me in one place.” An advantage not only Sheldon S. Nazaré capitalised on. Many companies showed a high propensity to invest. This was reflected by the results of the representative visitor survey conducted by an independent market research firm. According to this representative poll, 50% of all visitors came to viscom with concrete intentions to buy – 30% of these with an investment volume exceeding € 50,000, and nearly 15% with a budget of over € 200,000.
viscom is an impulse generator for refreshing new ideas like no other trade fair in Europe, as visitors underlined time and again: “The take-home inspirations from viscom are important to us in order to be able to advise our customers well,” says Daniela Dulitz from advertising agency Schipper Productions.
Again proving THE hotspot for this was the viscom world of inspiration that presented innovations and best practice from all segments. The Special Area offered companies an added opportunity to exhibit technologies, products or services – from processes and materials to designs and even finished products – embedded in the complete process chain. With matchmaking events, the “designers’ treff” and “Lunch & Learn” sessions this Area proved the place for networking and knowledge transfer.
At total of 96 lectures provided insights into the trends in this industry. Meeting with the same strong response was the Special Area SUPERSTAR where the over 80 “best-in-class” nominated for this year’s SUPERSTAR were on show.
The coming viscom will be held in Düsseldorf in 2017.
