The marketing machine leading towards the Hunkeler Innovations at the end of February next year, has lurched into gear. The event in Lucerne (Luzern) is shaped around integration of Hunkeler equipment with continuous feed digital presses and the products that can be delivered from them. The biannual event has grown rapidly in recent years thanks to the arrival and expansion of inkjet printing into areas away from the transactional and mailing core of the event.
Hunkeler Innovation Days is also unique in focusing on the equipment rather than conventional exhibition booths. Exhibitors are limited in the space they are allowed and equipment must run. Hospitality is confined to a central area while private negotiations also take place away from the machinery.
In 2015 this will be dominated by the opportunities as inkjet quality reaches commercial quality. Ricoh’s VC60000 press will make its public debut in Switzerland while seven other vendors, Canon-Océ, Screen, HP, Pitney Bowes, Xerox, Xeikon and Kodak are premier level partners and will show presses. Whether Canon-Océ will bring the ImageStream, aimed at the same market as the Ricoh VC60000, along with a ColorStream press, is not announced. Screen will have the Truepress Jet520HD, essentially the same press as the Ricoh webpress. Xeikon will have the opportunity to bring its Trillium technology as an alternative to inkjet, though if not a machine, because the initial installation is delayed, will have samples.
Likewise Kodak has the latest Prosper 6000C aimed at commercial print quality and opportunities. Xerox will focus on Impika, having sealed the acquisition at the Hunkeler event in 2013.
In the second rank of the 80 exhibitors booked for the event are the likes of Heidelberg, Fujifilm, Domino, Muller Martini to show finishing solutions that can automate production of books, newspapers, catalogues and magazines. There will be nine paper companies present with inkjet optimised papers, while Hunkeler will itself air a coating unit to apply a primer to standard papers to make them inkjet suitable, or a post printing coater to add a level of protection and gloss to an uncoated paper.
The Hunkeler Innovation Days has become the must-attend event for all involved in continuous feed digital printing, surpassing Drupa even. This has attracted conference sessions held in turn by Interquest, the EBDA and Doxnet on consecutive days.
The exhibition in 2015 runs from February 23-26 at the exhibition centre in Lucerne, Switzerland.
The event takes place in March and in recent years has attracted a growing audience of digital press suppliers as the use of these presses has spread from transactional to books and now into commercial colour printing.
