FESPA’s Nordic Congress – hosted in Gothenburg, Sweden from 7th to 8th April 2011 in partnership with its member associations in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden – was a resounding success, according to feedback from delegates.
The second in a series of FESPA-funded regional conference-style events, the Nordic Congress attracted 50 print service providers from across the region. They joined speakers, suppliers and media participants for a two-day conference built around the theme ‘Continuing to Innovate’, picking up on the dominant campaign motto of last year’s FESPA 2010 exhibition in Munich.
100% of delegates at the FESPA Nordic Congress confirmed that they considered the event to have offered value for money, and that they would attend another FESPA knowledge-sharing event on the strength of this congress. A third of delegates were not members of a FESPA national association at the time of attending: of those, the majority indicated an interest in becoming a member of their national association following the congress.
The speaker line-up included Andreas Skantze of BIG image, Sweden; award-winning digital textile printer Torbjorn Johanssen (Tobex, Sweden); Pira’s Neil Falconer; industry consultant Mike Horsten; print business coach Nick Devine; Lars Martensson of Volvo; and Stephen Goddard of HP. The high calibre and commercial relevance of the speaker programme is reflected in the delegate feedback, with 95% of delegates confirming that the presentations offered good or excellent value to them. Over 80% of delegates rated the overall content good or excellent, while more than 86% considered the event to have offered good or excellent networking value.
FESPA CEO Nigel Steffens comments: “FESPA embarked on this series of regional partnership events in 2010, starting in Benelux. Our aim was to support our community by bringing together the collective intelligence of multiple national associations across regions where print service providers confront similar challenges and opportunities.
“Delegates in Gothenburg last week were complimentary about the format, organisation and content of the congress, and positive about the value the event would deliver to their businesses. That reinforces our firm conviction that printers everywhere can benefit from active participation in a community of like-minded professionals such as FESPA.”
FESPA President Gyorgy Kovacs concurs: “Sharing our community’s knowledge and collective wisdom is fundamental to FESPA’s organisational mission, and seeing it in action is inspiring for everyone involved. We are committed to channelling our reinvestment funds to develop our programme of educational and knowledge-sharing events elsewhere in Europe later this year.”
Future FESPA conference events already confirmed for 2011 include:
- Digital Textile Conference, Hamburg, 25 May 2011
- FESPA Asia Summit, Singapore, 16 – 17 June 2011
- FESPA Global Summit, Barcelona, 17 – 18 November 2011
For further information about FESPA events and to find out about membership of a FESPA national association, visit www.fespa.com.
