The past week has seen the IPEX exhibition under way with today being its final day. This large exhibition runs for an eight-day period, longer than a Print event in the U.S., but not as long as drupa in Germany. The conclusion after the first week is that this has been a very successful event, and while the number of attendees is not yet available, it appears that numbers are well up on the last IPEX in 2002. Speaking to exhibitors confirms this, and all whom I have spoken to find that the event exceeds their expectations in terms of both visitors and business being done.

The show has seen several key themes: reducing makeready times and manning levels on presses; increasing competition in 60 ppm space for production color digital presses; process- and chemistry-free CtP plates; and a big surprise in conventional plate imaging.

The show has seen several key themes. First of all is increasing efficiency to reduce makeready times on presses and also to reduce manning levels on presses. This is being seen on presses of all levels. A second is increasing competition in digital presses in the production color (60 pages/minute) space. In the CtP area the emphasis has mainly been on process- and chemistry-free plates, and there has been a big surprise in imaging of conventional plates. There has also been a continuation of the trend for violet CtP to increase its market share at the expense of thermal CtP. The following are a number of announcements made at IPEX.