From the Editor: A Hot Time at Drupa

I’M GETTING ready to leave Germany as I write this, having just completed a grueling four days at Drupa, the international print show held every four years in Düsseldorf.

It was a hot time—and I mean that literally. Thanks to the mugginess, and a somewhat different interpretation of air conditioning in Germany, I spent most of my time sweating and fruitlessly fanning the air with whatever press literature I picked up. It didn’t help that each day was filled with extremely long walks—miles of back and forth trudges between the hot meeting rooms where press conferences were held and the 19 exhibit halls.

Yes, I said 19.

The halls were spread over about 40 acres, surrounding a vast asphalt courtyard that bustled with buses and delivery trucks, as well as food tents and picnic benches. (To see a video of my Drupa experiences—both the good and bad—click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vW0cmnH0Ow )

Drupa is a spectacle to behold. If you thought Graph Expo was big, consider that the Chicago show draws about 640 exhibitors; Drupa brought in 1,971. The vast majority are companies that most Americans have never heard of—names like Böhler-Uddeholm, Hunan Xinshao, and my favorite, GUK. It makes you realize how vast the graphic arts industry is, and how much of it lies outside the United States. Likewise, some of the contraptions at those booths boggle the mind, their design offering no clue as to their purpose.

The vendors go all out at Drupa. Their booths are much larger with more equipment on display; many even have second levels featuring bars and cafes. Heidelberg filled two entire halls with its equipment, and they were always packed with people. An estimated 391,000 visitors from 138 countries came to Drupa this year.

Unlike in the Drupas of decades past, there weren’t a ton of surprises this year, since most new products had been pre-announced in e-mails. Still, Xerox managed to catch most journalists off guard with its iGen4. Only a few people were lucky enough to see it, though, since Xerox kept it under lock and key.

As predicted, high-speed ink-jet was a major theme of the show. Xerox demonstrated a new waterless cured gel ink, and companies like Océ, Kodak, Screen and HP showed new high-speed, high-quality ink-jet machines, some available only as “technology demos” for now. The output was impressive, though, and portends a future shift from offset and toner to ink-jet.

Though chemistry-free violet plates were introduced by companies like Agfa and Fuji, they didn’t make quite the splash I thought they would. I don’t have space or time to go over everything right now, but I’ll detail all the Drupa announcements starting next month.

My plane is on the runway now, ready to take me away from this land of small beds, sauna-like street cars and Alt beer, and back to a world of air conditioning and over-sized cars. Still, I’ll miss Germany, and hope I can return soon. Until then, Tschüss!

(The dates for the next Drupa have already been set: May 3-16, 2012. Mark your calendar now...if you already have a 2012 calendar for some reason.)