The Print Show was all about little boxes. Not the jaunty Pete Seeger song criticising suburban development, but the sort that can be produced on digital presses, perhaps with spot varnish or foil, and cut and creased on a flatbed table.
There was plenty of these around: Vivid Laminating, Duplo, IGS, Morgana and Intec leading the way. There were samples including personalised gift packs containing a miniature bottle of Gordons gin, to demonstrate what could be done and plenty of interest from commercial printers exploring ways to diversify into what is a growing adjacent market – namely cartons and labels.
The gin package had been produced through collaboration between eProductivity Software, ASL and Morgana. The first handled the box design and personalisation on it; ASL printed sheets on a Ricoh 9200 and Morgana using a table from new acquisition Intec to cut out and then to assemble the presentation box by hand. The team had hoped to give away 100 boxes. In the end more than 400 were produced.
It was not the only personalised promotion. VPress repeated a promotion tried in pre pandemic days. Visitors could have their name imposed on a label, printed on a Ricoh sitting on the stand and perhaps teamed up with a presentation box. It ensured a steady flow of visitors to the stand, many of whom then stayed for a demonstration. Companies are now more aware of web to print and personalisation. Previously the beer had been the draw.
As with the gin box, Morgana had creased and cut out the presentation box for the beer on a Valiani Integra cutting table that was introduced to the UK industry at the show.
This is a different proposition to the lightweight cutting tables that most were showing. It includes a routing tool to cut out acrylics and had produced the Dibond furniture that sometimes nervous customers were invited to sit on. As a very portable – albeit temporary – seat, there is a future at outdoor events, concerts, weddings and other parties for example.
The show came close to filling Hall 17 at the NEC, the furthest from the railway station, and for two of the three days attracted plenty of visitors. The exception was the first day where attendance was down owing to the bank holiday the day before. People chose to go into work the following day to organise production for the week rather than make the trip to the NEC.
On the Wednesday and certainly the Thursday morning, the aisles were busy with visitors and demonstrations continuous, some continuing into the Thursday afternoon while packing up was underway.
The result was a collection of happy customers, which might not have been the case had the turnout of Tuesday continued. PrintIQ had signed enough business to more than pay for the stand by midway through the show. Duplo collected details for more than 100 companies, many of them making direct contact for the first time.
The final tally of business will come only in the next few weeks as companies assess the contacts made. ASL has already booked space for 2023. Others seem sure to follow.
ASL had a busy stand: a Ricoh Pro C9200 printed duplex on an Ensocoat board, a Xerox Versant 280 configured to print metallics and an Oki Pro 1040 label press. This is a self contained table top device and very much a first toe in the water for label printing. It attracted plenty of footfall. The LED imaging, £13k or so price tag and ability to print on a range of materials in short runs which is proving popular elsewhere in Europe with more than 1,000 in use. This was very much its introduction to the UK market. ASL has picked up a hatful of leads.
Likewise Lyiu, a producer of large format printers, was kept busy explaining the benefits of its Swiss designed and Turkish made machines. It was the only machine of its class, coming up against Agfa or EFI Vutek for example, at the show which helped. It also helped to have secured distribution via Adapt that will increase the profile of the supplier. In France and Spain for example, Liyu makes 40-50 installations a year. It will be hoping for a similar impact in the UK.
There was plenty of large format inkjet elsewhere with Hybrid Services bringing new Mimaki machines, Perfect Colours with HP and Adapt itself with what seemed a field of Epsons. One of Fujifilm’s new Acuity flatbeds was the centre of attraction on the Colyer stand.
Despite this interest, the Print Show is for jobbing commercial printers. Disappointingly the press manufacturers, with the exception of Konica Minolta, had decided not to participate so there was a limited choice of toner machines on show, a few Ricohs or KM engines but with no strategy behind them.
But this was a show that should have been about applications and in some instances it was. IGS had decorated its new Titanium 9012 cutting table with examples of small cartons, many produced by DecTek which takes delivery of the B1 cutting table directly from the NEC.
This was a first outing for the model, said director Peter Flynn. It has a maximum cutting area of 900×1,200mm and has stack capacity of 200 B1 sheets. A CCD camera registers to the image. Flynn explained: “We are seeing a lot of interest from litho printers because these companies are looking for new revenue streams and are looking at short run customised packaging.”
The shell of the machine is shipped from Asia with IGS tweaking the table and adding its own drive software. This includes a database of standard designs that will help new users hit the ground running Flynn explained. The ability to cut different materials also paves the way for users to diversify production.
Vivid Laminating has gone a step further. The company was operating a Veloblade on its stand, equipped with the Velotaper. This applies double-sided tape to the box, making a vast impact on the hours needed to assemble boxes by hand. It can be retrofitted to Veloblades in the field and is fast becoming a de facto addition to new machines. It has also won the Intertech award for 2022, completing an ambition for Vivid.
“We have won awards for the Matrix and Easymount laminators,” says Lewis Evans, “and want to make every product and award winner. It’s great to get recognition as a British manufacturer. Every part of the Velotaper is produced in Leicestershire.”
Nor was this the only launch for Vivid. It was giving a show debut for Zipcore, a software for building the carton designs from scratch or from modifying thousands of preloaded templates. It enables printers to keep box design in-house. Many, Evans points out, have been outsourcing designs to agencies or else buy designs online. The software gives them greater control.
Duplo included its Blade cutting table on a stand which was designed with products for smaller printers in mind. Consequently it did not bring the DuSense, though samples were on hand, nor the B2 multifinisher or iSaddle booklet maker. The decision to bring instead a DBM350 booklet maker seems to have been correct with seven inquiries to follow up. The Blade was in operation constantly, exhausting the stock of sheets that were used for demonstrations.
Morgana had taken a similar approach. It launched the 4000, a new booklet maker that is pitched at users with a requirement of 30,000-40,000 booklets a month, and drew constant interest.
There was also strong interest around the AeroDieCut, a rotary die cutter that comes with a £40,000 price point making it very attractive to a printer looking at cartons and wanting something more than a cutting table can offer. As well as cutting it will emboss given the right die. Now Morgana is looking for the right supplier and is considering offering a sourcing service for customers.
The biggest debut product was arguably the Konica Minolta AccurioShine 3600 embellishment press. It is an SRA3 format brother to the MGI machines and uses the same technology to apply a high resolution spot varnish, adding a foil (though this was not on the machine at the NEC), or high build varnish.
It is part of a sweep of products from Konica Minolta that covers the range of added value options, including the Motioncutter laser cutting. This type of embellishment is more popular elsewhere. “The UK market is always slow, but this is the future for any jobbing printer, for people dipping toe into packaging,” said Allan Bates, KM business development manager.
