Photokina 2016 - Impressions

It was a lot of work. A lot. For a long time, we strived to sail out onto the wide sea of photo fairs, Photokina, with our little boat called compagnon. And with our four-man/woman crew, not with hired hostesses, stand builders, etc. A trade fair appearance based on our products: Handmade, genuine, natural, special, unique. But is such a vision well received? Do the trade fair visitors like what and how we present ourselves? Is there an understanding of the compagnon emotions, the product world and our values? Or do we end up standing among the throngs of international big players like the country boys from the Black Forest? But as we all know, you can't find out how deep the water is without getting wet...

As soon as we started to set up our stand alongside the other exhibitors piece by piece for the first time, we realized how different our trade fair appearance would be. But that was exactly our goal. So when the last screw was put in place and our artificial turf was laid, we were very, very happy with the result and fell onto the air mattresses in our tent late in the evening, absolutely exhausted. You, the true judges of our vision and our work, awaited us the next morning.

To make a long story short: We were blown away by your enthusiasm, your feedback and your reaction to our products. We welcomed so many familiar faces, some of whom have been loyal compagnon customers and fans since 2013. We were also joined by well-known friends who had their own fans (who are often already ours) in tow, such as style pirate Steffen Böttcher or Carmen & Ingo Leitnerwho were even our guests for an interview. With Max Leitner we also had a talk guest who was a worthy representative of the up-and-coming Instagram artists. The guys from netucated were with us with the camera, Ben Hammer was with Steffen for a ClickClickWhat live session on board.

The numerous visitors who literally besieged our stand at times on each day of the fair gave us the feeling that we had done everything right and reached you with our work in the way we had dreamed of. We also received similar feedback from Andrey Balabasov, Martin Krolop and Calvin Hollywood left there. What more could you want?

What more? Clearly: to see the happy faces of those who tried on and tested our products. And there was no shortage of that either. Creative people who did not yet know the name compagnon fell in love, rewrote wish lists and fulfilled long-cherished dreams. Visitors who specifically sought us out expanded their compagnon family or made sure that their family members and friends finally (quote) "got a sensible, beautiful camera bag too".

And now? We look back on Photokina with great joy & enthusiasm and face the tasks that lie ahead. We will do our best to fulfill your requests, orders and wishes as quickly as possible. We also hope for your understanding if it takes a little longer for your compagnon to arrive in individual cases. We really could not have expected such a positive response, although we are truly optimistic.
We would like to thank all visitors, new customers, new fans & newsletter readers, as well as all the people in the compagnon community once again and share a few impressions of the trade fair with you and all those who didn't make it to Cologne and show you what was going on in Hall 4.1 I029.

In short: It was amazing. Thank you!