Ticket sales for Drupa 2024 are on a par with ticket sales for the 2016 event, despite what the intervening years have done to the industry.
“When I first looked at the ticket sales compared to 2016 when this became possible a four or five weeks ago, I was amazed that sales were a little higher than at the same point in 2016,” says show director Sabine Geldermann. “Today the sales for this year are very close to 2016 and we are running at a similar rate as before.”
This suggests that the marketing efforts to convince visitors from across the world to come to Dusseldorf is working. With the exception of a few high profile non participants, the marketing has worked on exhibitors to the effect that 140,000m2 of space has been sold (at a top rate of €428/m2) with almost all halls filled. The exception is Hall 13, home to secondhand dealers and others with small stands. There is now a waiting list of mostly Chinese companies, leaving Geldermann confident that any gaps on the floorplan will filled by he time the show opens on 28 May.
The Chinese contingent is greater than before with 395 exhibiting companies compared to 368 Germans, 138 from Italy, 64 from the UK, 57 from the US and 49 from the Netherlands. The latter’s numbers are boosted because Japanese companies such as Screen and Komori will frequently book through European subsidiaries based in the Netherlands rather than through a Tokyo office. In all there will be 1,570 exhibitors with 75% of these returning for at least their second time.
This covers 55 nations including for the first time participants from Egypt and Bahrain. Likewise visitors buying tickets or participating in visiting delegations are coming from parts of the globe where print is still expanding. Messe Dusseldorf has been active in recent months spending time in Asia and Africa in particular to spread the message about Drupa and to advise on any issues, applications for visas, that might arise.
In all these encounters, Geldermann says that none ever asked whether it would be possible to watch live streams from the conference sessions to participate in the show remotely.
“The industry is simply not looking for it,” she says. “We offered this for our exhibitors but as as soon as it was possible to meet face to face, this is what they wanted to do.”
