FESPA Fabric is shaping up as 2011’s leading European product showcase and educational event for garment printers and decorators.
Co-located with FESPA Digital 2011, FESPA Fabric 2011 has drawn leading industry names such as Brother, Chemica /Sefar, Karl Groener, Kornit, Marcodie, Melco, Polyprint and Stahl, with Kornit Digital confirmed as FESPA Fabric sponsor. Covering approximately 3000m2, FESPA Fabric 2011 will fill Hall B1 of the Messe Hamburg exhibition centre, linked 
by a short walkway to the halls of the FESPA Digital 2011 wide-format print event.
The launch FESPA Fabric event in 2010 - which ran within the flagship FESPA exhibition in Munich – attracted over 10,000 visitors from 113 countries over five days. FESPA Sales & Marketing Director Marcus Timson comments, “The success of FESPA Fabric 2010 in Munich showed that the European garment printing community valued a different style of event, one that reflects the energy and visual creativity of the garment printing world.”
He continues: “Our vision for FESPA Fabric 2011 is to create a rich ‘campus-style’ event. Through a packed programme of live demonstrations, hands-on workshops, side shows, seminars and of course the show floor exhibits, visitors will experience the broadest mix of garment printing and decorating products, technologies and techniques. Great fashion engages many senses, and FESPA Fabric will aim to do the same, giving participants the opportunity to see, touch and try everything from screen printed special effects to digital direct-to-garment printing, embroidery to embellishment, high fashion to promo wear.”
In addition to the exhibits, visitors to FESPA Fabric will find some of the most popular live interactive features from the 2010 event, such as Charlie’s Corner, a creative screen printing workshop, Fresener’s Fabric, a comprehensive theatre-based programme of tailored educational content, and the crowd-pulling Fabric Live! fashion show.
The Apparel Store is a new FESPA Fabric event feature, re-creating the visual appeal of a fashion retail environment in the form of a walk-in store where manufacturers of pre-print garments can showcase their collections to prospective customers.
Timson continues, “Garment printing is a dynamic industry which is propelled forward year on year by the exacting creative and production requirements of designers, retailers and fashion brand owners. The pointers are that 2011 should be a year of growth, and FESPA Fabric is the only pan-European event for this community in 2011. We are working energetically to make it an unmissable learning experience for every European garment printer looking for products, technologies and ideas to improve their business performance in the coming year.”
The eye-catching visitor promotion campaign for FESPA Fabric rolls out this month, including a dedicated microsite at www.fespa.com/fabric, comprehensive above-the-line marketing in influential industry publications and web sites, and targeted direct marketing to FESPA’s international Fabric visitor community.
Print service providers with a broader interest in textile applications may choose to combine their visit to FESPA Fabric with the third FESPA Digital Textile Conference, which will explore the full scope of printing onto textile substrates, from garments to soft signage.
FESPA Fabric
www.fespa.com/fabric
