Be a part of the digital revolution and witness the start of the recovery!

[Marcus Timson]

Print and exhibitions are inextricably linked. Always have been – the Guttenberg Press was launched at the Frankfurt Trade Fair in 1454 – so print and an exhibition fuelled the spread of the reformation and facilitated countless other revolutions throughout history.

So print and shows deliver outstanding results. We all know that!

And the story goes on in Amsterdam next week. Digital innovation continues to breathe life and creativity into the wide format sector. The imagination, determination and creativity of manufacturers and the flexibility and adaptability of a new breed of digital image makers will do business over three days of the show. There will be a buzz and it will be pleasantly surprising....exciting and invigorating!

Indications are that it will be a superb event, registrations are high and we expect to beat the result generated from the Amsterdam event in 2006. This will be a stunning result in light of the extremely different economic conditions.

And following the small signs of recovery from ISA in Vegas in April and Sign and Digital just last week in the UK – the 2 economies of the western world most drastically affected by the banking sectors catastrophic failure – the signs (pardon the pun), are positive.

Someone (a printer), operating out of London, said to me the other day ‘If you listen the news, read the newspapers and watch the TV – it’s depressing. If you wait for the phone to ring and it doesn’t and you begin to let the whole thing get to you. What we have done is gone out to the market, been in customer’s faces and brought new products to life. And you know what? It’s working.’

So to all those out there still deciding whether you should attend FESPA Digital or not - its really simple – you simply won’t get another chance in 2009 to fuel charge your business with inspiration, innovation and remind yourself of the amazing potential of this marketplace.

The game is not over yet and the market needs your engagement in order to kick-start it into action!

Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s most certainly tough out there – but don’t make it even tougher on yourself by staying at home and waiting for the phone to ring, it might not...because everyone will be at the RAI? Maybe ;-)

See you in Amsterdam.