A Demo Center With a Difference

I trekked to far away Cincinnati last week to see the new xpedx Technology Center. It features three Ryobi presses, including a five-color Ryobi 525 two-up press, along with a wide variety of prepress, digital, and post press options from such companies as Kodak, Epson, Morgana, C.P. Bourg, and Secap. Other equipment and technologies from these and other manufacturers will be added in the near future. The aim of the center is to attract some 250 printers annually to see how these various offerings can be mixed and matched. xpedx claims the center is the only one in the U.S. devoted to demonstrating and selling equipment from a wide variety of manufacturers for both offset printing and digital printing markets. I think the xpedx approach is quite innovative and offers a great opportunity for printers to see a wide variety of equipment, including Ryobi’s line of larger format presses and the 2-up 520 series. That said, is this another sign that companies may be pulling back from trade show participation in order to exclusively bring customers into their own “captive†demo centers? Hardly, since xpedx will have 12,000 square feet of exhibit space at Print ’09, making it one of the largest exhibitors at the show. They will be featuring the new Ryobi 42" 1050 along with the 750 series 23x29" press. This big iron will be in the xpedx booth located smack-dab next to the Heidelberg exhibit. Two things come to mind. First, xpedx is serious about moving upstream to compete in the larger format arena while at the same time defending its small-format turf, represented by the 520 series and the 3304, against a shrinking number of serious competitors. Second, I think that this two-pronged approach with a well equipped demo center augmented by a select but significant trade show presence will become fairly common in the near future.