Though attendance by both printers and suppliers has been waning at regional industry trade shows in recent years, Chris Jacobson is upbeat about launching his new PrintFest this year. Jacobson says that the show, scheduled for May 11-13 at the Long Beach Convention Center, Long Beach, CA, will be different from the standard industry exhibition. His vision is of a forum that will be shared equally by suppliers and users and that will serve as a source of information sharing as well as a place to see the latest hardware innovations.

In mid-March Jacobson reported, "We have about 130 booths sold so far, with a goal of 200-plus. To reach that goal, we need to sell about one booth per day, but we are currently placing two to three booths on the floor plan per day. I'm optimistic that we'll get there." He adds, "Even if we cut off the floor plan today, we have enough anchors and quality companies participating in each product category to provide significant value for our attendees."

The theme of PrintFest is "Profitability." This mean buying equipment not only to remain on the cutting edge, but learning how to use it to actually make money.