In a week in which it emerged that Komori and Xerox would no longer be exhibiting and Landa had withdrawn its provisional booking, Informa said it was still confident of keeping to its original estimate of 55,000 unique visitors.
"London is a big drawcard for Ipex 2014 and I do believe that many more visitors will be attracted because the show is in London," said Ipex 2014 event director Trevor Crawford, adding that the integration of Cross Media with Ipex in 2014 would attract a new crowd to the event.
However, Crawford admitted that Xerox’s decision not to attend was "a blow, a setback and a surprise" as he confirmed that Komori had also pulled out in November.
"No exhibition likes losing exhibitors, whether they’re taking 1,600sqm or 16sqm, but we have to put this into perspective, the show is still 15 months away and we’re still ahead of where we were in the last cycle."
[Related: Ipex to head downunder]
Crawford pointed out that Informa had suffered similar problems in the build-up to Ipex 2010, only to see the situation reverse at the last minute as the recession ended and business confidence returned.
"If you look back to what happened in the build-up to the last Ipex, we lost the best part of 7,000sqm in 2008-09, but bookings accelerated massively [from] the back end of 2009 and I think we will see something similar happen in this cycle.
"Currently, the show will be without stands from Agfa, KBA, Komori, Heidelberg, digital giants HP and Xerox, and Nanographic innovator Landa Corporation.
Excluding KBA and HP, which were never on the floorplan, this amounts to a loss of 8,064sqm, although this includes a 1,638sqm provisional booking from Landa that was never confirmed and 857sqm held for Komori and Xerox in addition to their confirmed bookings.
Excluding these amounts, Ipex is down 5,569sqm, forcing Crawford to admit that 2014 would be a smaller show than 2010.
He added that while HP and Xerox would not be taking their own stands, he still expected equipment from the pair to be on show on their partners’ stands.
[Related: More Ipex news]
This article originally appeared at printweek.com
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