The Show Wrap-up: Part 1

This year’s Print 09 trade show in Chicago, Sept. 11-16, managed to both defy and confirm all the best and worst predictions made about it leading up to the big event.

Attendance was down, but those who did go to the show were there to do more than just “kick the tires.” In the words of EFI’s Guy Gecht, attendees took the attitude of “Recession schmessession.” Attendees were there to look at ways to expand their current technology, or look for new markets, or even just improve and innovate in their workflow.

Attendees realized that, economic issues aside, if a business stands still, it’s a chance for the competition to get a head start. These are the shops, worldwide, which will be leading the pack as the global world of print continues its recovery.

And it is recovering. While recession and financial troubles were being addressed by almost every major manufacturer, the mood on the show floor was optimistic. Vendors are seeing, for the most part, a slow increase in interest for everything from software to offset presses. They were pleasantly surprised by the number of machines sold from the show floor this year.

And, as one company representative pointed out, they’re starting to see an increase in demand for consumables such as ink and paper, a good indication that print is picking back up overall.

In this first part of Printing News’ look back at the show and what caught our attention, we’ll look at some of the announcements that made waves the first few days of the show. At presstime, the second day of the show had concluded, and there were still more technologies, innovations and meetings to come for this editor. It’s been a great show so far, and from all reports, the last few days should see more traffic, more announcements, and more excitement from almost every sector of our industry.

Prepress Makes a Mark

While there haven’t been any major new pieces of technology on display at the show, one big trend is in the prepress and workflow area. Many booths from some of the largest players in the industry demonstrated a full connected system, from the input of files through the output of a printed piece.

And we’re not talking about a theory. In several booths, customers are being invited to bring their own files, and then follow them around the booth, watching as each task is completed, including the final output. Ease of use, speed and efficiency are the three main themes of Print 09, with an emphasis of doing more, doing it faster, and doing it smarter than ever before.

Sun Chemical was showcasing this concept in its inks with products designed to improve productivity and bring value to customers in both the commercial and folding carton markets.

The company highlighted its SunLit Diamond sheetfed offset inks for high-speed presses specifically formulated for improving press productivity. The company also highlighted the SunPak Diamond inks, Sun Chemical’s line of sheetfed offset inks for folding carton package printing. Again, the inks were designed to specifically enhance productivity and print at high standards.

X-Rite/Pantone highlighted its new EasyTrax semi-automatic color system at the show, along with partnerships across the board for support of the system. Fitting into the product range between handheld color management devices and fully automatic systems, EasyTrax is targeted at commercial offset or folding carton packaging printers with smaller format color presses (from 20 inches up to 40 inches), or those working in a primarily process color environment (two to six colors).

“With EasyTrax, X-Rite now offers a best of breed color control solution for every type of sheetfed printing workflow, from inspiration to production, regardless of the size of customer, their budget, or their level of color process control expertise,” said Laura Pursley, senior product manager for pressroom solutions at X-Rite.

Promoting Press Efficiencies