Business - Events

At FESPA Americas (Orlando, Florida, 24-26 February 2011), FESPA will host a two-day Global Business Forum (February 24-25 2011), bringing together printers from North America, Latin America and Europe.

The FESPA Global Business Forum is a strategic level event that sets out to develop the key themes explored at FESPA’s last Global Summit in Miami, Florida, in March 2010, with a focus on how to improve business during 2011 and beyond. Through conference sessions and live debates, participants will dig deeper into topics such as leadership, sustainability, developing niches, mergers and acquisitions, e-commerce, digital marketing and social media, operational best practice and optimising customer engagement.

The content will be pitched at senior wide-format print business leaders, principally from the US and Canada but also from Latin America and other regions around the world. It will include new market-specific research produced by FESPA in conjunction with information partner InfoTrends, pointing to global and regional sector trends.

FESPA managing director Frazer Chesterman comments: “Leading printers in our global wide-format community know that they have to develop innovative business models and practices to thrive going forward. Feedback from US printers regarding previous FESPA events has been that our unique style of content has been extremely valuable to them. On that premise, the FESPA Global Business Forum will bring together global experts in Orlando to deliver business-critical information and facilitate an open exchange of views, experiences and opinions on the topics concerning most wide format printers today.”

The event will be hosted by JR Kraft of Build-A-Sign.com, who comments: “I’m excited about the prospect of hosting this Forum. The level of content at the FESPA Global Summit in Miami was both inspiring and original. We aim to evolve this content for 2011 by applying some of the themes from that Summit and adding new tracks that provide delegates with practical advice that will give them new ideas and point to new opportunities.”

The program includes: B2B Media’s Chuck Driskell; BV02 President Andrew Milne; Andreas Skantze of Swedish print innovator Big Image; Paul Lilienthal, owner at Pictura Graphics; and InfoTrends President Jeff Hayes.

As with the FESPA Global Summit Blueprint - which was the product of contributions from the March 2010 Global Summit in Miami - the objective with the FESPA Global Business Forum will be to create a high-quality ‘white paper’ style document that outlines new trends and opportunities and highlights best practice, taking content and input from delegates at the Forum.

Entrepreneurial wide format printers in North America who would like to be among the participants at the Global Business Forum should send their contact details and a brief summary of their business to FESPA’s Marcus Timson at marcus.timson@fespa.com. FESPA will be hosting guests to the event with a special package for up to 100 selected US print CEOs.

Places at the FESPA Global Business Forum are limited, so printers should register their interest as soon as possible.

Around 200 signmakers, digital printers and industry people attended a Spandex open house event in Bristol on the 4th and 5th of November. Following the company’s successful theme of ‘Learn, Discover and Benefit’, the event highlighted the latest trends and innovations for the digital printing and signmaking industries. The Spandex team also presented customers with a number of ideas on how to take advantage of the growing textile and soft signage market by maximising the potential of new and existing technologies.

Added value through workshops

Attendees benefited from a range of seminars. Two of them were delivered by technical expert company Color Concepts and were designed to help visitors deepen their knowledge of digital print and the opportunities it represents. Various other learning opportunities on topics such as fine art reproduction; sign systems; fixings and fastenings; wall wraps as well as Gerber Edge Media Applications were well received. Other highlights included live car wrapping demonstrations which involved hands on participation from visitors. Attendees were also able to create customised textiles by using a heat press and Spandex’s textile marking films.

Specialist media

Offering the industry’s widest range of media brands, Spandex’s event enabled visitors to see the latest additions to the portfolio of leading brands such as Avery®, Mactac®, 3M™ and ImagePerfect™. Representatives of each brand offered inspiring ideas on how to deliver complete solutions and a broader scope of products for customers to increase profitability. For example, the sign systems range on display included mounting frames from Labate and Co.

Designed to provide visitors with new ideas on how to enhance their service offering, an eye-catching ImagePerfect™ Gallery highlighted a wide variety of materials from Spandex’s own range of digital and signage materials and accessories, ImagePerfect™.

Hardware demonstrations

Throughout the event, visitors were able to experience live product demonstrations of an extensive range of wide-format inkjet printing solutions from leading industry manufacturers. Highlights of the event included Epson's new Large Format printer GS6000 (64"), designed to enable sign shops and screen printers to move into more premium services, such as vehicle wraps, point-of-sale, and fine art reproduction due to its high resolution, 8-colour output capability. Visitors saw the Epson GS6000 printing on a range of materials, including the ImagePerfect™ 2314, a textile material designed for high impact, soft signage displays.

Also on display were a Mutoh Valuejet 1304 and Spandex’s new Gerber CAT UV flatbed inkjet printer. As a true economically priced flatbed UV printer, the Gerber CAT UV is ideal for signmaking, point of sale and other unique applications.

Explains Phil McMullin, Spandex UK Country Manager: “We’re delighted with the number of visitors that attended the open house, a clear indication of the value that these events offer the industry. All attendees commented about the importance of gathering industry information and having direct interaction with product and industry experts. We’re equally delighted about the number of orders closed at the event, in particular for the Epson GS6000 printer.”

“Customers were unanimous in their praise for the open house. From interactive workshops, live product demonstrations and practical expert advice, visitors went away with a number of ideas on how to make the most out of new and existing equipment to maximise the opportunities of the growing textile and soft signage market.”

 

FESPA will host the third of its successful Digital Textile Conference events on 25th February, 2011, alongside FESPA Americas (Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, 24-26 February 2011).

Created as a forum in which wide-format and textile printers can learn and garner innovative, strategic ideas from industry experts, FESPA will hold Digital Textile Conferences at each of its key exhibitions in 2011, including FESPA Digital (Hamburg, 24-27 May 2011) and FESPA Asia (Singapore, 26 –28 October 2011).

Following on from the success of the first two FESPA Digital Textile Conferences, the events will once again be chaired by John Scrimshaw, textile expert and editor of Digital Textile and International Dyer. As in previous years, each conference will feature a mix of speakers including leading print specialists, digital textile printing authorities, textile printers and end-users of digitally-printed textiles, covering commercial and technical topics, and examining trends and opportunities in the sector.

At the FESPA Americas Digital Textile Conference, in February 2011, these include Dr John Provost, Technical Editor of Digital Textile magazine and a global consultant with expertise in textile ink formulation; Dr Mike Fralix, President and CEO of TC2; Kevin Kelly, Blue Heron Industries Inc; and Tim Greene of InfoTrends, who will discuss new market research findings.

John Scrimshaw comments, “The wide-format market is evolving rapidly and the use of textile as a substrate, as opposed to vinyl, is increasingly common in the flexible, soft-signage sector. Additionally, there has been a move towards direct digital printing in the garment decoration market. With so many changes occurring, and at such speed, the FESPA Digital Textile Conferences are the perfect opportunity for printers to confront these changes and discuss the questions they raise for their industry.”

FESPA’s commitment to an international series of Digital Textile Conferences in 2011 reflects market demand. FESPA’s 2010 World Wide Survey revealed that, for 47% of companies, the demand for wide-format textile printing within their business is growing, along with banner and domestic interior applications, which will provide significant opportunities for innovation in the wide format printing community.

“The FESPA Digital Textile Conferences are an excellent opportunity for printers to voice their opinions on their industry, and the interest we are receiving for our Americas event suggests that the conference will be extremely well attended,” says Frazer Chesterman, Managing Director, FESPA.

“At FESPA Americas, visitors will find the Digital Textile Conference to be the ideal place in which to gain the skills, and learn about the technologies which can make a difference to their business. Whether they want to explore the opportunities of printing onto textile substrates, or already do so, the conference will equip them with the knowledge to make them a success in textile print, be that for commercial and domestic interiors, flags and banners or soft signage,” Frazer concludes.

 

FESPA is supporting this year’s Eurobest European Advertising Festival (Hamburg, Germany, 7-8 December 2011), to offer European creative agency professionals new insights into how they can harness large format print to boost the impact and effectiveness of clients’ advertising campaigns.

At Eurobest, FESPA will deliver PrintPlus, an interactive workshop hosted by FESPA managing director Frazer Chesterman. PrintPlus will explore the role of print in today’s increasingly complex marketing mix, offering an expert overview of the sector, and inspirational examples of how print has been effectively deployed in high profile advertising and promotional campaigns for leading brands around the globe.

PrintPlus aims to give agency professionals a fuller understanding of the new potential of print, and fresh ideas on how to deploy print most effectively to deliver enhanced value to their clients’ next campaign. Through presentations and real-world case studies, the workshop will cover topics including use of variable data printing, QR codes and Augmented Reality to entice target audiences and drive response.

FESPA managing director Frazer Chesterman comments: “In our online age, it’s easy for agencies to overlook the power of print. But new developments in print make it an ideal vehicle for engaging audiences in a more personal, satisfying way, while integrating tightly with other campaign elements and supporting other channels.

“FESPA works hard to ensure that printers understand what motivates agencies and their clients. Through our collaboration with Eurobest, we can support the FESPA community by helping creative agency professionals to see how print can enhance the contemporary marketing mix, drive response and optimise the client’s return on their marketing investment. What’s more, the insights and feedback we get from the agencies will help us to ensure that future FESPA events cater to their interests, as well as those of the print service providers they rely on.”

FESPA Digital 2011 (Messe Hamburg, 24-27 May 2011) will include a one-day programme of educational and inspirational content specifically for marketing and creative professionals looking to increase the effectiveness of the printed elements of their advertising campaigns.

Presenters at PrintPlus include Christian Duyckaerts of award-winning Belgian print group Print and Display; Nick Sohnemann, innovation advisor with German media trend bureau TrendOne; Simon Jobling, commercial director of UK marketing solutions agency m2end; and Andrew Milne of Canadian web marketing agency bv02. In addition to the PrintPlus session, FESPA will also host an onsite networking event for Eurobest jury members and event delegates.

HP today introduced its premiere client event, HP Discover Americas, giving businesses and governments the opportunity to hear from industry thought leaders, attend interactive sessions, participate in specialised training, and network with peers and HP executives.

HP Discover Americas – which combines HP Technology Forum and HP Software Universe Americas into a single must-see event – will take place at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas during the week of June 6, 2011.

“HP Discover Americas gives us the opportunity to bring together all of our clients to hear about HP’s vision for business and governments – the Instant-On Enterprise,” said Thomas E. Hogan, executive vice president of Enterprise Sales, Marketing and Strategy, HP. “This is an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed – we will demonstrate, once again, that only HP can provide the solution breadth and depth needed to help organisations capitalise on opportunity.”

HP Discover is the showcase event where organisations can learn what it takes to start their Instant-On Enterprise journey. By embedding technology in their organisations, clients can deliver innovation at every point in the enterprise that matters, to serve customers and citizens.

Produced by HP Enterprise Business in cooperation with participating independent user groups, the multiday event will offer sessions on everything from application transformation to information optimisation, mobile devices to global data centers, security to hybrid delivery, as well as the latest in cloud computing. In addition, the event will feature end-user roadmaps for HP’s portfolio, including services, automation and management software, servers, storage and networking. Attendees also can gain experience with hands-on demonstrations as well as participate in valuable technical training, education and certification courses across HP’s products, solutions and services.

Paul McCartney to headline attendee celebration

At the conference, the attendees will also get a first hand view into the partnership between HP and MPL Communications under which HP technology and services will ultimately reinvent how the artist and his fans interact. Legendary entertainer Paul McCartney is scheduled to headline the HP Discover America’s closing ceremonies.

 

The show team are delighted to announce that Print Ireland and Sign & Digital Ireland will take place next on the 12 – 13 October 2011 at the Citywest Convention Centre, Dublin.

Having conducted some extensive research the feedback firmly points towards having the show in October at a prime time in the buying season. In addition to that the show team have received a big thumbs up from exhibitors and visitors alike for the impressive purpose-built Citywest Convention Centre because of its easy access from Dublin’s motorway network and good transport links. The new venue boasts a well designed and easily accessible exhibition hall with free parking, along with hotel, conference and leisure facilities, including a golf course.

For more information on Print Ireland or Sign & Digital Ireland please visit the websites:

 

• www.print-ireland.com
• www.signanddigitalireland.com