April 24, 2003 -- Continuing education, retraining, skills enhancement…today’s printing and publishing industry uses all these terms and others to reflect a simple reality. To prosper in business today, even veterans have to learn new things all the time. The Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC) points to the upcoming 31st annual GUTENBERG FESTIVAL as the year’s best opportunity in the West to catch up with key trends and new knowledge both through formal “classroom” sessions and through the “real world” experience of touring 250 company exhibits. The 2003 GUTENBERG FESTIVAL occurs May 1-3 at the Long Beach Convention Center. GASC expects this year’s festival to attract about 12,000 industry professionals. A big part of the event’s appeal is the program of more than 40 educational workshops and seminars being organized by GASC and the Printing Industries Association of Southern California. The program includes five full-day seminars and 35 half-day sessions, focusing on sales and marketing, pressroom skills, prepress technologies, emerging new markets, customer service, and business planning. The full-day education programs are: * Estimating…Getting Back to Basics! * Taking Your Customer Service Team to the Next Level * Buying Printing…Getting It Right * Growing Your Business Strategically * Production Management Skills 2003 GASC and PIASC have also designated four half-day workshops to comprise a “Supervisory Training Program” offering a certificate from PIASC and two Continuing Education Units through the industry-wide certification program administered by the Graphic Arts Institute of America (GAIA). These opportunities for formal education add a valuable dimension to an exhibit hall that will abound in product demonstrations and other chances to gain new knowledge. “A strong regional exhibition like the GUTENBERG FESTIVAL offers unsurpassed opportunities for one-on-one conversations and direct questioning of leading experts from manufacturers and dealers,” notes GASC President Regis J. Delmontagne. Full-day workshops at the GUTENBERG FESTIVAL run from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm. Half-day sessions are three hours, 8:30 to 11:30 am or 1:00 to 4:00 pm. Seminar registration includes admission to the exhibit hall. Online attendee registration and additional details are available at www.gutenbergfestival.org.