Trade shows in China continue to put print exhibitions elsewhere in the world into the shade. While Printing United managed to attract 27,000 visitors and the Print Show not even 7,000 All in Print China drew 180,870 to the exhibition centre in Shanghai for five days in October. This was around 75% higher than when the show was last held three years ago and 50% above the 120,000 visitors expected. At that time 108,000 visitors attended.
The statistics dwarf other events. The exhibition covered 120,000m2 with more than 1,100 participating exhibitors including companies from Europe, the US, South Korea, India and the UAE.
The show is organised by Messe Dusseldorf, the company behind Drupa. Its president and CEO Wolfram Diener explained: “This is the largest edition of All in Print China to date. Since its launch in 2003, All in Print China has grown alongside the printing industry. Today, China’s printing industry is undergoing a profound transformation from traditional manufacturing to intelligent creation. The theme of this year’s exhibition, ‘Intelligent Print, Infinite Creation’ is a strong response to this transformation.”
The organiser reckons that slightly more than 22% of the visitors came from 141 countries, many looking to strike distribution deals for Chinese technology. This was helped by two dedicated matchmaking sessions during the show where there was strong interest in book binding equipment, die cutting, laminators and finishing in general.
The overseas attendance was up on the previous event where 126 countries were represented in the visitor numbers. At that show the exhibition covered seven halls, this year ten.
As well as the equipment itself, there two featured zones: Drupa Connect hub and Innovative Digital and Intelligent Technologies.
This is developing rapidly with some 100 product introductions at the show, not all of which will make it to Europe. Highlighted among these were a new high speed platesetter and automatic plate feeder from Cron and a continuous feed inkjet press, the EagleJet P8800CHD, from Founder Electronics. The press prints on an 880mm wide web with Kyocera print heads running at up to 150m/min. The company had introduced a mono version of the 880mm wide press, running at up to 200m/min, at last years China Print exhibition.
