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One Honkin' Good Graph Expo
September 23, 2007
At last, after more than two weeks, I can blog again. It’s taken me this long to recover from Graph Expo, and here’s why—the show simply surged with energy. For the GAM team it brought about the largest print project in the shortest interval that I have been involved in my professional career—more than 650 pages of publications produced in a 30 day cycle, all present and accounted for at the show. Oh, and GAM relaunched its Website (graphicartsonline.com) with a channel just for Graph Expo.
Print Is Killing Me
The manufacturing was handled by a half dozen printers, and more than 20 sales, amnufacutring and editorial contributors brought these projects in for the show. The one most obvious to attenders was the tabloid Show Daily, which accounted for 320 of the pages, not counting special multi-page inserts. Lots of long hours were involved by folks who rose to the occasion and took those heroic measures that make big print projects happen. Our publishing parent company managers, all entranced with the Web, insist print is evaporating. As I noted to our CEO, “I thought you said print was dead; well, it’s killing me!”
Top Moves List for Graph Expo
There were some exceptionally noteworthy gatherings at Graph Expo, which surprised me in their seriousness and depth, and I will delve into them in upcoming postings and in print. Here’s the quick list, though, that shows Graph Expo is rapidly growing into a new role as the annual convention of the printing industry. Beyond nearly 70 educational gatherings, we also saw these notable groupings and summits:
--Education Summit (where are the students?)
--Mail Moves America (DMA print-boosting initiative)
--Print Council (our industry’s print boosting initiative
--TAGA board meeting (premier global research group)
--Roster of global PIA Premier Print Award winners (not just U.S. anymore)
--NAPL Soderstrom Society inducting quick printers (at 75th anniversary gala)
--ICED (Kwik Kopy, Inkwell, et. al.) annual convention
--NAQP Owners Conference (concurrent with Graph Expo)
--Print Buyer’s International Conference (printers to to talk to buyers)
--Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGIA, FTA, PIA/GATF going green)
--XPS Land (Microsoft’s answer to PDF is coming)
--Strong wide-format print and mailing systems pavlions
--IPA Premedia Leaders Panel (the business is thriving)
--Executive Outlook and Must See’ems announcements
--Drupa reception (opens in Dusseldorf May 29, 2008)
Posted by Bill Esler on September 23, 2007 | Comments (0)
