Focus no more: Europe’s largest annual photo show becomes a sepia-tinted memory

It's been a few years now since the Photo Marketing Association called curtains on its once-mighty annual PMA Spring trade show, later resurrected as a subset of the heavyweight Consumer Electronics Show. Today, news reaches us of another annual trade show that is no more, and this time it's Europe's largest annual photo show. (Obviously, the Photokina show in Germany is much larger, but it's held biennially, rather than every year.)

According to the UK's Amateur Photographer magazine, Focus on Imaging show organizer Mary Walker Exhibitions has officially announced that this year's show -- which took place in early March -- will be the last in a long series that started as the Focus on Photography show way back in January 1990. Walker suggested to Amateur Photographer that the show will not be sold, and suggested that the time was ripe for a revolution in how the industry presents itself to photographers.

The Amateur Photographer article speculates that the show cancellation comes due to a trend of late booking by exhibitors, and notes that Focus on Imaging was believed to be financially sound. Although the 34,397 attendees recorded this year were down around 8% from 2012, that show set an all-time record of around 37,684 visitors. Comments received by Amateur Photographer from industry figures roundly mourned the loss of the show, but speculated that another entity would step in to fill the void.

More details in Amateur Photographer's article.