The massive 10,000 m2 Print Media Center, renamed Home of Print, is a technology mastodon with equipment from Heidelberg and its partners. Yesterday, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen opened its doors for 600 guests attending the company’s 175th anniversary. Everything was well planned, and the execution was simply beyond.

Outside the Print Media Center and as part of the registration area, a DJ and a Saxophone player spiced up the waiting time, which was also used to find and connect with friends and peers. When you enter the Home of Print, the first thing you experience is a beautiful sample room, leading you into a huge presentation area and a stage where Chairman of the Board Jürgen Otto kick of the event spiced up with a fantastic sand art experience by the world-renowned Ukrainian Kseniya Simonova - and from there the curtains were lifted and the Home of Print officially inaugurated.

Operators were ready to present the machines, and visiting Heidelberg’s Home of Print raised a question I asked myself several times—why attend a tradeshow when they have this at hand?

Heidelberg’s Nick Trabold, Global Head of Service Operations & Print Media Center, has, along with colleagues, built the Home of Print, in which you find everything from Ricoh’s toner-based Heidelberg-branded toner printers to the new and huge flexo press Boardmaster.

The new self-confident Heidelberg, Home of Print, shows how Heidelberg now covers almost all production methods and applications, and with a will to move out of a shadow that even Heidelberg people privately recognize has been part of the past. Now it’s time to look forward, and with Heidelberg, which I have always found a bit self-focused, partnerships are part of the future - Ricoh, Canon, and also introduced yesterday, the manroland delivers Heidelberg-branded solutions. I asked Jürgen Otto if this is part of the new Heidelberg, and with an answer that Heidelberg will be where the customers are, this also shows a new and, in my view, very exciting future.

In the evening, the celebration continued at the Mannheim Palazzo - great food, great entertainment, and a perfect celebration of a company that in the past 175 years has been instrumental for printers globally, for its competitors, keeping everybody on its toes to deliver technology that is essential for printing and packaging and instrumental for free speech.

Congratulations