Fespa has scrubbed this year’s rescheduled Global Print Expo and relocated and brought forward next year’s event to enable visitors and exhibitors to adjust to the post-Covid expo landscape.
The show had originally been scheduled to take place in Madrid earlier this year, but, as a result of the coronavirus crisis and the resulting lockdowns, was rescheduled to October 2020 and slimmed down to three days.
However, Fespa has now effectively cancelled its 2020 event and brought forward the 2021 show, which had initially been penciled in for Munich in May 2021, avoiding a clash with next year’s rescheduled Drupa.
The four-day 2021 Global Print Expo, which is co-located with European Sign Expo and Sportswear Pro, will now take place at the RAI Exhibition Centre in Amsterdam on 9-12 March. Munich will instead host the 2022 event.
In a statement, Fespa CEO Neil Felton said that since initially pushing the March Madrid event back six months, the development of Covid-19 had been “dynamic and unpredictable” and while he acknowledged that many regions were emerging from lockdown “at this point in time we cannot be confident that we could match exhibitor and visitor expectations of a Fespa event if we were to go ahead in October this year.”
“Early March 2021 offers the strongest alternative, giving our exhibitors and visitors time to recover and ourselves time to prepare fully for any new operational requirements,” he said.
“Feedback from the market indicates that, having faced the considerable commercial challenges of 2020, our community will welcome Fespa Global Print Expo in March 2021 as an important platform for business recovery and forward progress early next year.”
The Amsterdam RAI has played host to several Fespas, most recently in the 2016 Drupa year when the show attracted more than 16,000 unique visitors and 450 exhibitors.
Courtesy: PrintWeek