Felton was speaking about the forthcoming February event at the Fespa Global Summit, which brought together customers, manufacturers and industry analysts.

According to Felton, the organisation "made mistakes" with May's Hamburg show but is well on course to a sell-out Spanish event, which will be held at the trade fair ground from 21-24 February.

"In Hamburg, Fespa Fabric took place as a separate event in a separate hall. At Barcelona that will no longer be the case and will be very much part of the main event," he added.

Fespa is placing an increased emphasis on the burgeoning fabric sector and direct-to-garment technology, which will occupy around 10% of the 2012 event after attracting more than 2,500 visitors at the Hamburg event.

The organisers also used the global summit as an opportunity to outline a range of new features for the 2012 show, including an area for smaller format print technology.

Visitors will be able to attend a series of free half-day conference and workshop sessions under the Explore Conference banner, which will cover topics such as business building, technology, sustainability, digital signage, and printed electronics.

Fespa has also introduced a hands-on technical experience in the form of Print Shop Live! which it says will allow enable visitors to test their artwork files on both wide and narrow format print technology.

In addition, the advent of the narrow format zone will showcase small format digital print equipment to demonstrate how customers can complement their wide-format firepower by adding new revenue channels.

The organisers said the Gran Via halls will also house the pop-up Big Buck$ Café, which will act as an application showcase for signage, point-of-sale graphics as well as interior décor and printed furniture.

"Fespa is focused on creating the best possible events for our industry’s suppliers and their customers, and the location, logistics offering, catering facilities, and exceptional exhibition space presented by Gran Via will help us to achieve this," added Felton.


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