Organisers of the PODi European App Forum and the Cross Media event (run by Informa) which takes place at London’s Business Design Centre in October 2014, have announced that the two events will be located at the same time and venue this year.
PODi’s European director Tony Hodgson said that of the digital print initiative’s 500 case studies, more than 200 featured cross media applications. The paid-for App Forum will take place in addition to Cross Media’s own free seminar programme, though this also is subject to some change this year.
Exhibitors are to be invited to take more of a proactive role in shaping the free content, predominantly, it is hoped, through case studies with their customers.
“This will enable us to make the App Forum a bigger event than we have been able to before in Europe. We can look at the strategic future for cross media, which personally I believe is essential for the future of the digital print industry. The key message for the digital print community is that you have to embrace multi-channel communications in addition to ink on paper.”
Informa insisted that though exhibitors would have more of a say in the free seminar content, the programme would be policed to ensure that it did not become a series of sales pitches.
“It’s the perfect marriage for us to work together,’ said Trevor Crawford, director of Informa’s Print Group. ‘We want the Cross Media programme to be valuable content. It is important that exhibitors have a stake a content but it is also important that they bring their customers to take part.’
Informa said that there would still be four free seminar theatres at Cross Media, in addition to the PODI European App Forum, but the names/themes of those theatres have not been decided yet.
