Print’09 has now taken place. Unfortunately I was unable to be there but I have followed the event and comments about the event on a wide range of media. From this I have come to a number of conclusions, however I’m sure many attendees will not agree with what I concluded about the event.

First of all and it can come as no surprise Print’09 could not be considered a successful event in terms of visitor numbers. In fact on the first day it appeared to be more like the closing day with the lack of attendees. According to a number of commentators attendance picked up later in the event. Well, again that is not surprising with an event that starts on a Friday. I would fully expect much greater attendance numbers at the weekend. I think Frank Romano summed it up with his comment that at the end of the first day there was no taxi queue. There has always been a taxi queue every day at Print/GraphExpo events. Quiet shows are also more tiring for attendees and exhibitors so it came as no surprise to hear NAPL’s Keith Kanak said that he was tired after the fifth day. There was also the comment from Jeff Hayzlett the Chief Marketing Officer of Kodak saying that five days is too long for a show. Come on guys, this is supposed to be one of the world’s major shows. How come a market as huge as that of North America finds five days too long, whereas in Europe and Japan we see shows from eight to fourteen days with good attendance every day.

I know that we are in a recession and printers have limited access to capital, so they see little point in attending a show. This either reflects on the lack of future planning by North American printers or the lack of ability by Print’09’s organizers to sell the benefits of coming to the event. It was interesting to read in Patrick Henry’s article in whattheythink on September 12 a quote from Heidelberg Chairman and CEO Bernhard Schreier who observed that the U.S. has a relatively old installed base of equipment that can’t achieve the waste reductions and other efficiencies that printers now realize they must achieve. In Europe and the Far East there has been a much higher level of investment in the latest press automation that in Europe, probably because the competition is much tougher there. I think it is interesting to see that in general North American printers are slower in adopting technologies to improve their operations than printers in Europe, and today also in the Far East.

There were a number of other interesting comments I saw in WhatTheyThink reports. Barb Pellow emphasised the ability at the show to get educated in seminars and to network with other printers. Well if that is what printers are coming to Print’09 for, why do we need to have the show floors and all the exhibitors. OK, it may be that the show failed to generate any real excitement, as there were hardly any real new products to be seen there. Kodak and HP both decided not to show their future equipment, and almost everything at Xerox had been seen elsewhere before.

I think however there was something exciting and this came from Kodak with their rethink of what a trade show needs to be. This was their ‘virtual’ or digital booth. This was a booth where everything was show in a digital form, and I don’t mean digitally printed. One could see whatever one was interested in via digital presentations. There was also a continuous theatre the K-Zone where a series of discussions took place. (What I saw in looking at these on KodakTube area of YouTube this should have been the H-Zone since it appeared to be mainly Jeff Hayzlett in the pictures).

The Kodak booth was interesting as it showed that the future trade show could become virtual events apart from the networking. The Kodak presentations could mainly be done online or from a laptop. Perhaps this shows that if people come to trade shows, as Barb Pellow was suggesting, to be educated and to network, then the trade show of the future should be a conference with virtual demonstration booths. If we are going to do this may I suggest in order to enhance the networking we also add a golf tournament.

The structure of trade shows has been a subject of discussion among vendors for years, many of whom see them as a great expense that fails to generate a good return on investment. Many suppliers have talked for many years about reducing their investment in trade shows and moving more to road shows or private events. Perhaps the Kodak approach will make this a mainstream discussion among vendors.

The next big trade show, and this one runs over eight days is IPEX in the UK next May. So far exhibitors are showing good support for the event and it will be interesting to see how visitor numbers stand up. It will also be interesting to see how ‘virtual’ exhibitor booths will become. I am willing to bet that this time Kodak will not miss the opportunity to bring the new Prosper Color XL Press to show their view of the future of printing.