• january
• february
• march
• april
• may
• june
• july
• august
• december

News

Exhibitor responses from PHOTOFAIR Kyiv 2009. Fuji-Mig

Boryachok Oleg
FUJI-MIG Director

This year, PHOTOFAIR Kyiv was held later than usual, at the beginning of summer. And although the weather for the first few days of the exhibition did not put one in mind of summer, the calendar showed that it was already the first ten days of June, when school breaks up and people set off to the Crimea on holiday. It would be untrue to say that the global economic crisis has not affected the Ukrainian photo business.

This year, there were not any major photo brands at the PHOTOFAIR, although there were many visitors, and the absence of well-known brands showed the true state of our photo market. There were quite a few clients from Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Russia, and people came to the exhibition who wanted to update their equipment, increase the range of services in their photography shop or investigate the photo business as a new area of development.

Because of the dates of the exhibition (beginning of summer), there were few visitors from the Crimea, although this is all quite explicable – it is the beginning of the holiday season, urgent work needs to be finished and preparations made for the summer. There were also very few girls. Usually, beautiful photo models by the stands attract visitors and exhibitors.

Our company’s stand was busy throughout the exhibition. Besides the Doli digital mini photo laboratory, we presented equipment for producing photo books, dry digital minilabs and equipment for producing souvenir products. After talking with visitors at the stand it became clear that the crisis is a crisis, but that Ukrainian businessmen continue to develop the business, open digital shops and introduce new services in their retail networks.

The conclusion is straightforward: the digital photo business is developing, and the crisis has simply delayed the appearance of new technologies and new digital services in the shops of our clients. The future will bring new digital minilabs that will print high-quality photos with low production costs and inexpensive equipment.