"We're very gratified that the number of visitors surpassed the 10,000 mark," said Christoph Riess, CEO of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the organiser of the event. In 2009, the event
drew 6,700 visitors.
"I think this high participation is a reflection of the interest in new opportunities for the publishing industry brought about by both digital media and by the technological advances that allow for new creativity in the print product," he said. "Tablets, mobile services and applications, and paid content services were all on display, as were big developments in the automation of newspaper production."
The 40th annual exhibition included 341 exhibitors from 33 countries, an increase of more than 20% from last year, including printing press manufacturers, editorial and advertising system providers, new media providers and other suppliers to the newspaper industry.
Germany, France, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy and Austria were the most represented countries among visitors to the expo. The majority of visitors were MDs or CEOs, technical or production directors and editors.
Major announcements for investment in print production technology during the show provided a good indicator of the slight recovery around the world. KBA, manroland, Goss International, Schur Packaging Systems, TKS, Fujifilm, ppi
Media, Baldwin and other production supplier companies signed a number of multimillion-euro orders this week.
The event was accompanied by the World Editors Forum, which began Wednesday, 6 October with nearly 600 editors from 86 countries, as well as an Advertising Summit, a Tablet and E-Reading Conference and Focus Sessions on newspaper production.
Read the WAN-IFRA Expo blog for more on these events.
WAN-IFRA presented the winners of the XMA Cross Media Awards 2010 at the exhibition. The focus of the awards was on "local markets". This international media prize, presented for the fifth time, is awarded for especially successful examples of publishing on multiple channels (print, online, mobile, event, etc.). More on the awards, including overviews of all the entries, can be found at www.wan-ifra.org/xma.
The 2011 Expo will be held in Vienna, Austria, from 10-12 October 2011, followed by the World Newspaper Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2011, from 13-15 October 2011. It will be the first time the
congress will be held alongside the IFRA Expo, following the example of 2010 when the Editors Forum was held in conjunction with the expo in Hamburg.
The 2012 IFRA Expo will be held in Madrid, Spain, from 29-31 October 2012.
