The decision was taken by the 20-member drupa committee at its constitutive session held on Friday. At the same time the body unanimously appointed Claus Bolza-Schünemann, CEO of Koenig & Bauer as the chairman of drupa 2016

Pressure for a new three year cycle came from some of the newer exhibitors to the print industry, and from printers, however drupa says it decided to stay with four years so it wouldn’t wreck exhibitors’ global print trade fair cycle, which runs in successive years as drupa, Print (Chicago), Ipex and Igas in Tokyo.

The decision to stick with four years will come as a relief to the other shows, particularly Ipex which is already coming to terms with the non-appearance if its two biggest exhibitors Heidelberg and HP at the 2014 show.

At the same time, the drupa committee decided to shorten the length of the fair to eleven days – from May 31 to June 10, 2016. “Visitor structure at drupa has changed. While in the past large groups travelled to the fair – preferably at the weekend – drupa is now increasingly developing into a  B2B fair with a high proportion of top decision-makers,” said Werner Dornscheidt, CEO at Messe Düsseldorf, explaining the decision. “At this year’s drupa 78 per cent of the international visitors and 52 per cent of German visitors came from top management; respectively this is four and five percentage points more than in 2008. This makes running over two weekends unnecessary. With eleven days – one weekend and nine working days – we perfectly cater to the needs of both supply and demand.”

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