Heidelberg has confirmed its intent to place a greater focus on virtual trade fair concepts and regional events in the near-future, signalling its removal from the drupa 2021 floor plan as an exhibitor.
This strategy includes its own Innovation Week, running 19-23 October, 2020. Under the slogan ‘Unfold your potential’, Heidelberg will present product innovations that focus on packaging and commercial applications, including autonomous printing, end-to-end options, Smart Print Shop and Push-to-Stop. The Innovation Week will take place via livestream as well as face-to-face at the company’s Wiesloch-Walldorf facility.
Heidelberg CEO Rainer Hundsdörfer explained, ‘We will be investing more in new, virtual trade fair concepts to ensure closer and more individual customer communications as well as in regional events in our growth markets. This means we will be able to consistently align ourselves with our customers’ expectations.
‘The Innovation Week will now enable us to communicate with our customers as soon as possible and to present our innovation offensive.’
Face-to-face dialogue will continue to be the focus at the company’s Print Media Centers in Wiesloch-Walldorf (Germany), Atlanta (USA), Shanghai (China), Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Tokyo (Japan), where it will engage with customer-specific needs directly. At the centres, Heidelberg offers customers and other interested parties access to product and technology demonstrations, direct communication with applications specialists, and training courses. Heidelberg already welcomes several thousand customers annually to its own demo spaces around the world.
The company has made the announcement in response to the impact of COVID-19 and the global coronavirus pandemic on innovation cycles, as well as global travel restrictions and hygiene regulations that will likely impact attendance at large-scale events going forward.
drupa, alongside almost all other events planned for 2020, have been postponed and rescheduled. Many are now due to take place in the first six months of 2021, making next year’s event calendar a crammed one for both exhibitors and event attendees.
As an exhibitor at drupa, Heidelberg has historically been a linchpin of the show floor, although its physical presence has declined in recent years. Bobst has also signalled its intent to follow a different path in how it communicates with customers in the near-future and will not be attending drupa 2021, along with other shows next year.
In a statement, Heidelberg noted, ‘COVID-19 has accelerated the move towards digital and local events. Although there is no way of knowing what the impact of corona will be next year, Heidelberg has to make a decision now.
‘So, the company has decided to not participate in international trade fairs next year and will thus not be taking part in drupa. In 2021, drupa will be a very different event – global travel restrictions and hygiene regulations mean significantly fewer visitors and constraints on communication. Traditional international trade fairs with busy booths and halls will very probably be difficult to implement and will likely lose their status as global meet-up events for customers and manufacturers.’
The company continued, ‘As a long-time partner to drupa, Heidelberg will be happy to continue to offer its experience when it comes to bringing future trade fair concepts into line with new digital possibilities and customer requirements.’
Heidelberg has recently stopped development and sales of its Primefire 106 digital folding carton press, but maintains an interest in the digital package printing market via Gallus and its Labelfire hybrid label printing platform.
