Production print in all its permutations gets an extra boost of adrenaline during a drupa year. With a schedule that runs the same as the Summer Olympics and the US Presidential Election, there’s so much chatter before the show even raises the curtain—and then comes the actual wonderland of technology that, sadly, I’ve yet to experience. But I do know that when a spectacle like drupa ends, the conversation is only beginning.
Wayne Beckett and Chris Watson of Printing Connect Online did attend drupa 2024, the first in-person edition in eight years. They roamed the halls, all of them, in some cases multiple times. Walked into the booth or stand of too many companies. Spoke with dozens upon dozens of people: old friends, industry folk, potential new customers. And because these great chaps have witnessed the evolution of drupa over two decades, they have opinions galore to share and really know how to put things into context.
Automation, collaboration, and integration were, according to the Printing Connect Online guys, central to the main mission of this drupa. We talked about how, even if the numbers are down, the quality of lead from the event has certainly improved. There were plenty of partnerships announced and we touched on some of them, including the Canon-Heidelberg deal that hit the wire prior to drupa kicking off. A legion of vendors from China were present—predominantly on the hardware side, but can the software piece be far behind? What about Landa and Nanographic printing? Labels and packaging?
We sure did pack a lot in here…hear all their insight today!
