No More Business as Usual
With IPEX just a few days away, more and more observers are starting to speculate on the health of the event. The same thing happens with every show, but the scrutiny seems more intense on the biggest annual industry shows.
Will it be as big as it has been in the past? How many will attend? These are the questions that most of us focus on, but the answers do not provide a true measure of the success of any show today. In the current environment, fewer companies send a large group of attendees, electing instead to send one or two key people to do the necessary research. The days of traveling to a trade show on an expense account as a perk are long gone.
So in a few weeks, as we put IPEX behind us, I hope that exhibitors and attendees will judge it on quality instead of quantity. The same holds true for On Demand and Graph Expo later in the year. We can't use the free-spending late '90s as a yardstick in today's economy.
Keith Hevenor
Editor
Electronic Publishing
Comments
My impression is that this IPEX may clarify the development of integrated production for print and other media such as websites. For one thing Andrew Tribute will explain what he means by 'integrated communications channels'. I think I've remembered the term ok. For another thing the numbers registering as interested in pre-press is pretty high. There will be actual numbers later but I guess the digital media area will be busy.
Adobe may announce something soon. Printweek hint this is to do with PDF for print. But there is a lot of evidence Adobe are now more interested in Flash video for phones and so on. Maybe this will come over through their stand and a lot of people will find it normal.
Posted by: Will Pollard | April 1, 2006 12:04 PM