Statistics of Photoforum - 2003

The third international exhibition of photographic equipment, materials and digital media technologies – PHOTOFORUM-2003 – took place in Moscow, at “Sokolniki” Exhibition Center, from the 9^th to the 12^th of April. The show was organized by MIDEXPO exhibition company.

The exhibition occupied 5 pavilions, with total area over 17 000 sq.m.

165 companies exhibited at PHOTOFORUM-2003, including major manufacturers of photographic equipment and materials: Kodak, Konica, Fujifilm, Agfa, Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Minolta, Sony, Epson, Panasonic, Leica, Mitsubishi Electric, Samsung Cameras, Noritsu, Casio, Polaroid, Rekam, Ilford and many others. Russian manufacturers, represented at the exhibition: Zenit, Slavich and many others. Large sales companies, specializing in photo goods: "Techsoyuz", "Sivma", "Reinvest-service", "Royal-photo", "Converse", “Loma”, “Busheron”, “Instant”, "Vela", "City Trade", “Ostava”, “Terem”, “Marco Pro”, “Russcom”, etc. More than 300 trademarks were represented at the exhibition.

From the 9^th to the 11^th of April the exhibition was open only for specialists.

Total number of exhibition visitors – 36 300.
20 100 – specialists.

For the first time in history of PHOTOFORUM exhibition the organizers announced the “Product of the Year” award. The award was given to companies-manufacturers and was aimed at raising public interest towards best products and latest technologies presented in the Russian market of photo equipment, photo materials and digital media technologies. The nominations were: Film, Digital photo camera (non-professional), Digital photo camera (professional), Photo lab, Printer, Graphic station, Scanner. You can review the list of awarded companies with the nominated products in the Addendum attached.

For the first time in history of PHOTOFORUM the official newspaper of the exhibition – “Photo Times” – was published. The first issue was dedicated to imaging, the second – to image manipulation and printing. The full-color newspaper was a great success, featuring analytical materials (Russian photo market: trends of development), a special guide on new products presented at the exhibition, highlights of the most interesting seminars, professional articles and business solutions.

The introduction of a new exhibition category – Digital Media Technologies – was also a success, attracting a great number of exhibition visitors. The exposition on Digital Media Technologies was situated in exhibition pavilion №3 featuring a lot of Russian and foreign companies specializing in peripherals and input/output equipment.     

The international seminars and master-classes program was organized within the framework of the exhibition. More than 50 companies presented their new products and technologies. The seminars program also featured presentations on photo and video shooting, image processing and printing, photo business – analysis and solutions.

A few well-known professional photographers presented their master-classes at PHOTOFORUM seminar program, among them: Monte Zucker – photographer of the year (2002) – wedding and portrait photography; Norbert Maes – professional photographer (Belgium) – portrait photography.

Among most interesting business seminars, presented at Photoforum – 2003 seminar program, were those made by Institute for market research GfK RUS, International research and consultancy company Understanding&Solutions and Photo+Medienforum Kiel.