Unsurprisingly, Ipex and the likely future for the show have dominated conversation in the PrintWeek office this morning.
Canon has pulled out of the exhibition, and as Canon Europe director of professional print David Preskett was the president of Ipex, until today, this could hardly be less ideal.
There’s no getting away from the fact that today’s news has hoisted a huge question mark over the future for the entire event. Equally, Ipex owner Informa insists the refocused show with all of its cross-media bells and whistles will definitely go ahead.
We now await further information from Informa about what happens next.
I can’t help wondering whether this domino-effect of exhibitor withdrawals, which began with HP’s pull-out last June, would have happened if Informa had kept the show at the NEC.
As it happens I was at the NEC last week for Packaging Innovations, and driving into the car park brought back strong memories of Ipex 2010.
Let us not forget that Ipex 2010 – despite the ash cloud, despite the gorgeous sunny weekend that kept people at home by their BBQs – was deemed a success by every exhibitor I can think of.
I can see that the move to London’s Excel was entirely logical in terms of attracting those all-important international visitors.
At the same time, there are big structural changes in the industry, and yes, manufacturers are revisiting the way they promote their wares and find new customers.
But because of this fundamental change of location, exhibitors were forced to look afresh at every single aspect of their Ipex outgoings.
So, rather than placing a tick against a host of familiar Ipex-related items (“we’ll book that hotel in Coventry again, and the coach company we always use can bus everyone in”) the London move meant they had to find and price up new hotels, and work out London-centric transport costs, and the likely tab for eating out.
And while all this was happening, Drupa came and went and exhibitors will have been scrutinising their costs and costs-per-sale-made on the exit from that event, too.
For the record, I love big print shows. I love Ipex and have been to more Ipexes than I care to remember. I truly hope to go to a few more before I fall off the twig.
Ultimately, what we may be looking at here is a case of the law of unintended consequences.
