Really Big Shows

If you're looking for a reason to spend time out of the office doing something valuable for yourself and/or your business, September would be a good time to do it. Ed Sullivan (for those of you who were around back then) used to introduce his “really big show” and he had a lot of them… now, so does September. PRINT 13/CPP Expo, Pack Expo, Labelexpo Europe—and throw in the TLMI Technical Conference to start off the month if you want. From Chicago to Brussels (by way of Las Vegas), these are some “big shows” with lots to offer those in the packaging, printing, and graphic arts industries.

PRINT 13 is presented every four years, but is actually the annual Graph Expo on steroids, being that it is ramped up as an international show. PRINT 13 covers a broad spectrum of the graphic arts arena including 12 key market segments with 13 show-floor pavilions that help organize and target the areas of interest for those attending. This year the show is reflecting an emphasis on the ever-growing importance of the package-printing with a strategic co-location of CPP Expo.

“This dual exhibition of CPP Expo and PRINT 13 provides the ideal scenario for attendees in the package printing and converting market since they will be able to see and discover all of the very latest in digital, flexo, gravure, offset, prepress, design technologies, and products that are so vital to their customers’ brand marketing strategies,” said Leo Nadolske, president of CPP Expo.

As part of its charter, CPP Expo has lined up a number of conference sessions for converting and package printing, several of which are of particular interest to those involved with coatings and adhesives. A sampling includes “Rheology/Slot Die Coating Technology,” “Emerging Technology in Barrier Coatings,” and “Specialty Coatings for Packaging Appeal.”

When you have had enough of Chicago, you can go home, get a change of clothes, and head off to Las Vegas or Brussels (or both, if don't like to sleep and you're really interested in racking up frequent flyer miles). Labelexpo Europe is a more targeted show, with narrow-web label printing being its sweet spot (although, these days, there's a lot going on in related areas around the sweet spot).

Pack Expo, on the other hand, is a really broad show covering packaging in virtually its entirety. As just one measure of its breadth, the Pack Expo Association Pavilion boasts 21 association partners, including the Adhesive and Sealant Council and the Association of International Metallizers, Coaters and Laminators (AIMCAL). I attended my first Pack Expo show in the mid-1980s and have always been fascinated with the equipment on the show floor. If you can take some time away from the specific technologies you are investigating, take a walk around the show floor and you'll see some fascinating automation on display.

So, take some advice from Ed Sullivan and enjoy a really big show—which one is your choice.