Commentary by Steve Aranoff & Robert FitzPatrick

Since most of our readers come from the traditional printing marketplace, THE EAGLE would like to take the time to summarize the significance of the SGIA 2004 Exhibition, held from October 6-9 in Minneapolis. SGIA, the sponsoring organization, indicated that there were over 460 companies exhibiting with over 160,000 square feet of exhibitor booths. By contrast, this year’s Graphexpo held the following week in Chicago, boasted over 600 exhibiting companies and over 365,000 square feet of exhibit space. The SGIA Exhibition, previously standing for the organization and exhibition for Screen Printing Graphics, now stands for the Specialty Printing and Imaging TechnologyShow.

It is now over two-thirds the size of Graphexpo, if you consider that the Graph Expo square footage is partly the result of Heidelberg and Xerox and a few other large press manufacturers who need/want huge stands . In comparison to real printing, it is no longer the sleepy domain of short run tee shirt presses, flatbed screen presses and the associated inks. SGIA ha become important in the digital graphics-based print for pay world and is providing a significant indicator about one of the directions where growth in print has been strong. And, importantly, it was also packed with buyers. This show still represents more of a specialty graphics market.