Suppliers including Zund, Agfa and Mutoh have already signed up for Fespa Digital Printing Europe, which will take place at the RAI Exhibition Centre in Amsterdam on 16-18 May 2006.

Frazer Chesterman, Fespa exhibitions director, said that feedback from current exhibitors "shows that today's pace of technological change warrants a more frequent, pan-European event."

Meanwhile, this week's Fespa 2005 is on track to become the best-attended Fespa yet, with 8,000 visitors in the first two days.

Attendance at the exhibition, which began on Tuesday in Munich, has more than doubled compared to the last show in Madrid in 2002.

Chesterman reported that around a quarter of the visitors were from Germany, and that attendance from the UK, Italy, France, Benelux, Turkey, Brazil and South Africa had been "particularly buoyant".

He also revealed the date and location for the next regular Fespa show. It will be held at the Messe Berlin exhibition centre Berlin on 5-9 June 2007. The event has been moved from the regular three-year cycle to avoid a clash with Drupa 2008.

Story by Josh Brooks