Fespa Fabric to join Fespa Digital

Fespa Fabric will be integrated into Fespa Digital 2014, on 20 – 23 May at Messe Munich, Germany, instead of running as a separate show, the organisers have said.

Marketing manager for Europe and Asia Lynda Sutton explained that textile exhibitors had this year requested to be integrated into the main show rather than grouped in a separate space.

She said: “We’ve listened to feedback and said we’ll give them the option to be where they want to be on the show floor. We’ll make sure they’re still highlighted as textile and garment exhibitors though. There’ll be a separate registration for those interested in textiles and they’ll have a special floor plan to show where the textile vendors are- we’ll show where they are with tape or big flags.”

Returning for its fifth year, Fespa Fabric is this year being marketed with the slogan ‘Dive Deeper into Garment Decoration’, a campaign designed to convey ‘the ocean of opportunity for printing and embellishing, fabrics, fashion garments, sportswear and promotional wear’ using analogue and digital processes.

Key textiles exhibitors this year include Anajet, Brother, MS, Polyprint, Sawgrass and Kornit Digital, Fabric Corporate Partner for the fifth year running. Processes on show will include direct to garment, sublimation, screen printing, heat transfer and presses.

Fespa Fabric show features will include the return of Charlie’s Corner, where garment guru and owner of Taublieb Consulting, Charlie Taublieb will run hands-on workshops and live t-shirt printing demos. A textile conference theatre will also host seminars on new industry trends and techniques and new revenue streams.

Fespa chief executive Neil Felton said: “Garment printers coming to Munich in May will find plenty to help them delve deeper into textile print and garment decoration. In a market where consumers’ demands are evolving at a breathtaking pace, we want to help the garment printing community harness every available opportunity to develop and enhance their business by capitalising on new technology and material developments.”

The wider show, Fespa Digital 2014, is already set to be at least 5% bigger than Barcelona’s 2012 digital show.

Exhibitors have already booked a combined 14,586sqm of floor space, representing 86% of the total 17,000sqm available at the Messe München.

Fespa is aiming to sell the remaining 14% in full by next May.