Newspaper & Mailroom

World Publishing Expo Closes on Successful Note

Thursday 16. October 2014 - Almost 7,000 visitors from exactly 100 countries - the largest number of countries in the history of the event - attended the World Publishing Expo, the largest global trade fair for the newspaper and news publishing industry, which closed in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on Wednesday.

The 44th annual exhibition included 225 exhibitors from 29 countries, including printing press manufacturers, editorial and advertising system providers, new media providers and other suppliers to the industry.
The 7,000 visitors represented a slight decrease from the 2013 Expo in Berlin, Germany, but the number of chief executives and decision makers remained high.
“I am really pleased with this edition, this year’s show,” said Vincent Peyrègne, CEO of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the organiser of the event. “This year I saw a lot of positive and creative thinking. The vendors not only showed their products and services, but they shared their visions of the future of news and news publishing.
“There is value in innovation, and the Expo is the place where we see this innovation, and where we facilitate contact with the innovators,” Peyrègne said.
The World Publishing Expo brings together suppliers to the industry with its thought leaders and decision makers. In addition to the exhibition, which showcased the latest technologies, the event featured about 100 speakers sharing their success stories, three Media Port stages focusing on the power of print, new revenue sources, and content, and three premium conferences on tablets & apps, newsroom issues, and the future of printing news products.
Next year’s World Publishing Expo will be held in Hamburg, Germany, from 5 to 7 October 2015, at the Hamburg Messe.
Comments from participants:
Menno Jansen, Chairman of Q.I. Press Controls (which acquired EAE earlier this year):
“This exhibition has been more than fantastic. We, both EAE and Q.I. Press Controls, were able to close a total order volume of more than 5 million euros at the show. We signed so many orders at the Expo that for us it’s been the best show ever. We will be here next year.”
Massimo Barsotti, Chief Marketing Officer at EidosMedia:
“The show has been better than we expected. We had an extremely positive reaction to the new software feature we presented, Méthode Swing, the new app, and the social media integration that we showed here for the first time – we introduced it here – and it was extremely well received.”
Peter Marsh, Vice President of Marketing, Newscycle Solutions:
“This is my 20th consecutive Expo, and I have to say that this year we have had better one-on-one engagement with our customers than I can remember in several years. “We’ve conducted some really meaningful presentations, theater presentations, and one-on-one discussions on our content management, advertising and circulation products. I felt the dialogue and the interaction and the quality of the interaction and the questions was better than ever before, so this has been a great venue for facilitating that dialogue. Also, on the last day of the show, which is traditionally very quiet, we signed a contract with an Irish media company, for our Newscycle Pro product line.”
Eric Bell, Director Marketing Services, Goss International:
“I was concerned about attendance coming into the show, but it has definitely been better than I expected. The conversations have been relevant and good.”
Fernando Pérez, Corporate Communication Consultant, Protecmedia:
“I think it’s been a very good show this year – especially Monday and Tuesday – because we had a lot of demos at our stand, and good contacts about possible projects, so it’s been very good for Protecmedia.”
Torben Juul, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, CCI Europe:
“It was a great show. There were not a lot of crowds in the hallways between the halls but for us, I think we had perhaps even more visitors than last year and very high quality.”
Pierre Hame, Director International Sales, alfamedia:
“When I look back at the 14 years I have been at the Expo, I see the quantity of visitors is going down… The good thing is, though, the visitors you receive are the professionals you need to talk to, decision-makers, people with a real need for new things, are really looking for new investments. The opportunity you have to give a real quality presentation, a real quality meeting, is really good.”
Norbert Ohl, Managing Director, ppi Media:
“We had a lot of our customers here, which is always nice, and we had a large number of prospects, with whom we discussed completely new initiatives and projects.”
Richard Elmer, Director of Communications, Ferag:
“The stand has been full. Our sales staff said we established good contacts and the quality of visitors was high.”
Sebastian Eiden, Manager of Marketing and Product Management, red.web:
“On Tuesday we had an absolutely full stand. Based on experiences from previous years, we expanded our presentation areas, and it was a good thing we did. We got a visit from the Editorial Systems Tour, which was a fine activity. We are satisfied. Visitors take time to listen, and they come prepared with questions. We like the fact that the Expo takes place in a different city every year. It makes it really attractive to visitors.”
Lars Ørhøj, Chief Marketing Officer, Visiolink:
“The activity here has been crazy, basically. Everybody knows that Wednesday is slow, but we have had lots of visitors. Also on Monday and Tuesday. I’m really happy. Great people and a lot of new leads, actually. It’s been cool.”