KBA CHIEF RE-ELECTED AS DRUPA CHAIRMAN

By Wayne Robinson | 12 February 2025

Dr Andreas Pleßke, CEO of press manufacturing giant Koenig & Bauer, will be the chairman of drupa 2028, re-elected to the role he held for last year’s show.

Re-elected as chair of the drupa committee for 2028: Dr Andreas Plesske, pictured with Print21 editor Wayne Robinson at the last drupa — *Re-elected as chair of the drupa committee for 2028: Dr Andreas Pleßke, pictured with Print21 editor Wayne Robinson at the last drupa*

Pleßke will head the 16-person drupa 2028 committee, which is drawn from both technology developers and printers, and representatives of half a dozen German print trade associations.

Four of the 16 are new to the committee, those being representatives of major exhibitors Kurz, HP Indigo, MBO and Perfecta.

For the 2028 show drupa will look to leverage new target groups in what it says is “a constantly transforming industry” and to promote “high-calibre” knowledge transfer.

It says that alongside the “proven” trade fair format, “innovative formats” are being developed with a view to enabling “even stronger networking” within the industry. It says the focus will increasingly be on brand owners and multipliers.

Giving an insight into what the industry can expect in three years’ time, the exhibition organiser says topics such as artificial intelligence, automation, sustainable printing processes and digital transformation “continue to be centre stage”.

The trade show world is rapidly evolving, and at 175,000, visitor numbers for drupa 2024 were 35 per cent down on the previous 2020 show, as the print industry contracts and consolidates, and as annual niche shows, particularly Fespa and Labelexpo, attract increasing numbers of printers from those sectors.

Pleßke said, “It is a special honour for me to continue to actively help shape the development of drupa as chairman of the drupa committee. The world is changing rapidly – both in technical and political terms. Together with the committee we will ensure that drupa constantly develops further to also assert its pole position as a world-leading trade fair for print technologies in future and to orient the industry for the future.”

His deputy Wolfgang Poppen, managing partner at German printer Freiburger Druck also stressed, “drupa is the centrepiece of the industry, a place of innovations and technology launches. The coming months will be used intensively to further sharpen the profile of drupa’s position in 2028.”