Text: Lenka Ďurišová
Early evenings and reading good books go together as inseparably as digital printing on the book edges. And perhaps that’s why, for the 76th time, the multifunctional exhibition space of the Frankfurt Messe was once again transformed into one giant bookstore for one week in October. Readers can thus stock up on new reading material for the coming months and perhaps even pick up a few Christmas presents already.
To begin with, a few interesting facts about the building itself. When the Messe is not hosting a book fair, it hosts, for example, the world’s largest trade fair for the automotive industry. David Guetta, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and composer Hans Zimmer have also performed here.
And to give you a better idea of the size of the fair: the exhibition area, consisting of several interconnected buildings, covers 367,000 m², which is equivalent to approximately 51 football pitches. This area was then “subdivided” for the stands of the 4,300 exhibitors who came to show the best and most interesting of their products and to meet again after many months with business partners and friends from all over the world.
Finidr members, who come here regularly, already know the biggest pitfalls of the fair. The basic equipment is comfortable shoes in which they can walk tens of thousands of steps a day. Another important point is to plan enough time to move around the fairgrounds. Just to give you an idea – just the morning journey from the entrance of the complex, through the security check, to our stand can easily stretch to 20 minutes. A well-prepared schedule of meetings is also a necessity, so that the sales managers and our sales director can meet with as many publishers as possible.
One of our salespeople, Dominik Vavrena, summed it up aptly:
“Frankfurt 2024 – it was a ride again. Everywhere was full of books with digitally printed edges. At our stand, it may have looked like we were giving away something for free, because our tables were always fully booked. Finding time to eat or use the restroom between meetings was a miracle.”
But in the same breath he also adds: “It was great to see regular clients again and finally meet some new faces.”
As you can see, it’s really no week-long vacation away from the office. Everyone involved will surely agree with me that if they could go straight on a week’s holiday after Frankfurt, they would welcome it with enthusiasm.
But the FINIDR team was 100% ready and we really tried to make the most of this precious time. In the marketing department, we prepared a new display with even more space for book presentations. For months in advance, the sale team together with technology department had been preparing samples of new types of book bindings that we could present to clients at the fair.
The icing on the cake was when the fair management presented us with a certificate for our 25th participation. We were also delighted when, a few days after the end of the fair, the Börsenblatt magazine – Germany’s largest media outlet for literature – published a photo of our stand on its website with the comment: ‘The Czech printing company FINIDR is a specialist in digitally printed edges – which it proves not only at its own trade fair stand. At many of the publishing house’s stands you can see books with digitally printed edges produced in this very printing house.”
What can I say in conclusion?
The global book market may be huge, but it gives us room to grow, we have a network of great relationships across Europe and are seen as experts in our field. So, see you at Messe again next year!
And what impressions did Head of Quality Markéta Kubičková bring back from Frankfurt?
“The Frankfurt Book Fair was a great experience for me and an opportunity to see books from different continents in one place. I was also able to meet different people from the industry, get inspired and share with them the trends that are in demand by our clients today. The environment and atmosphere of the fair left a very good impression on me and I thank you for this opportunity.”
Text: Kamil Novák
Bibliotheca 2024
A book is inseparable connect with chilly autumn evenings. And the international book fair Bibliotéka inherently belongs to the colour of Bratislava in November. That’s why the sales department representatives also make an annual trip to Slovakia in autumn to represent our printing house and to show regular and potential new customers various new products.
This year, in addition to the well selling digitally printed edges, we came to present books with open spines and lay-flat binding, the advantage of which is that the book opens much better. All of these new products impressed the Slovak audience, but it is still the digitally printed edges books that have generated the most response and amazement. This technology is still not completely domesticated in Slovakia and many visitors are seeing books embellished in this way for the first time.
The book fair also includes a board games festival, a cosmetics fair and a minerals fair, which also brings the younger generation to books, and this is very important for the future of our industry. Schools also filled the exhibition halls on weekdays with lots of children who enthusiastically admired how beautiful books can be.
In spite of the beautiful sunny autumn weather, which invites to walks in the countryside rather than in the exhibition hall, and the absence of some big publishers, the fair was a success. We strengthened our current business partnerships and managed to make some new contacts, which hopefully will be transformed into more beautiful books in the future.
