Not many trade shows could announce a 20% reduction in visitor numbers and make it feel like a celebration.

Yet that's exactly what happened here at Drupa yesterday evening. Some 170,000 visitors had attended the show at the mid-point, a huge number of people but a fifth down on 2008.

However, the genuine feeling from exhibitors (not all of them, I'm sure, but a lot based on the people we've been talking to) is that they are happy to be meeting with serious companies who are here to buy.

Also an intriguing aspect is the number of big spenders from international territories. Xerox has reported a boom in orders from the Middle East and Russia, and Heidelberg was surprised to find China ranking alongside Germany in terms of order volumes thus far.

Fact is, we old world economies have far fewer printcos in 2012 than we did in 2008, the financial crisis/digital media surge saw to that. And at this Drupa I'm seeing fewer of the daytripper type of visitor who's just here to pick up as many free posters as possible, too.

Whereas in the good old days you might have had, say, six or seven people from a company attending for four or five days; in the new world 'lean everything' order of things it's now perhaps a more focused team of two or three, and they're attending for a shorter period.

No doubt an infographic showing Altbier sales at the Irish Bar from Drupas 2000  through 2012 would illustrate this perfectly.

Will Drupa hit its hoped-for figure of 350,000 visitors by close of play? Another week of Groundhog Day Messe-style and we'll find out.