Prasant Vats, executive secretary, IPAMA 

As we are getting ready organise PrintPack 2017 in February, the idea behind my visiting the show was to gauge at visitors’ outlook. 

On the first day, I noticed two things which are likely to have far-reaching implications in the days to come, not just for Labelexpo India or PrintPack 2017, but for the entire industry. First, the visitor footfall was markedly less. The numbers may rise in the next three days, but I doubt it will be much. The second is the impact of the decision to denotify Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. As you know, most printers deal in cash. In fact, the entire industry is cash-based. With the new development, printers will put their investment-decisions on hold and wait for the situation to improve, which will take some time.

I am worried that this may affect PrintPack 2016 in a big way. While visitors may want to skip the exhibition and wait for Pamex which is by the end of the next year, the exhibitors might also put up a frugal show by cutting cost.

As a show organising, what impressed me the most about Labelexpo India 2016 was the automated visitors pass kiosk at the entrance, where if you have registered online, you just show the printout and the machine gives you a printed pass, without any human intervention. This makes the process streamlined.