The hardest type of trade event to work is one where you set it all up and no one comes. I can promise that is not the case for Kodak at drupa. Our booth is among the busiest in every hour from opening through closing.
This morning as we were coming in we marveled at how quiet it was. There is an eerie silence to a trade show hall before everyone arrives and only early booth workers are quietly going about getting machines started and restocking collateral and sample areas.
I took some time to take a good look at the Kodak booth this morning. So many people had commented out how great the booth looked and how easy it was to navigate. Each one of the galleries spotlighting Kodak solutions looked great. The Packaging, Publishing, Digital Printing and Data Printing Galleries were each designed to speak to their markets and have been very successful in communicating our solutions-approach to growing the business. The Unified Workflow Hub is a great area to see all of the possibilities for commercial workflows, and serves as the nerve center of the south side of the booth. When you see it set up in this format it brings a whole new perspective to the discussion.
Between 7:30am and 8:30am the din slowly increased until the morning pre-show briefing where we learned that our sales colleagues have been very busy closing deals. We all want more, but Day One looked quite good. As the congratulations were being conferred the 10am signal - "one World, One drupa" announced the start of Day Two.
One of the side benefits of a major show like drupa is that we get a chance to meet Kodak colleagues that we have only known by phone or email, and we have a chance to see many of our customers and industry partners. While meetings over the phone and internet help us get amazing projects completed, it is always great to meet the people we work with in person. I find that I'm always looking at the name badges of every Kodak colleague to see if they are someone I have met through email.
Today was also a steady stream of familiar faces from the press, corps of analysts, and even vendor partners and competitors. It takes a lot to get the attention of the press and analysts at a show like this because everyone wants them to come and write about them. Most of the people who came to the booth today have already written about what we have, or will do so in the near future. We're excited because the press and analysts are excited!
One thing is clear. Everyone has heard about Stream - our paradigm changing inkjet technology, and they want to see it. Hundreds of people have made it a point to be sitting in the booth for the presentations each half hour, and they stay for the entire presentation.
Here is how we all sign in each morning.
The Digimaster is getting a lot of attention during the show, so this picture is taken before the doors open for the day.
Before the show opened you could actually see the Magnus Platesetter.
Tomorrow I'll start the walk around the booth to talk to the segment and product areas. Stay tuned as the excitement and sizzle continues...
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