An inside look at the upcoming conference from Mark Subers, president of events and exhibitions for PRINTING United Alliance/NAPCO Media.
In our efforts to encourage our dealer audience to engage in production print, we have sought out every opportunity to gain more experience and knowledge about this particularly important segment of print. To that end, we were pleased to learn about PRINTING United Expo 2022, taking place October 19–21, 2022, in Las Vegas. The show’s producer is NAPCO Media LLC, which represents a group of organizations that touches on every aspect of production and industrial print. To get a better understanding of what this exhibition has to offer our dealer audience, I interviewed Mark Subers, president of events and exhibitions for PRINTING United Alliance/NAPCO Media LLC.
FGC: Thank you, Mark, for taking the time to educate us about PRINTING United. Let us start with the main theme or message for this event. In your response, please bear in mind that our subscribers are dealers, manufacturers, and vendors who would like to know why they should attend.
Subers: The cornerstone of our strategy is addressing the convergence and diversification ongoing in print. This show is a combination of exhibitors and commercial printers that are addressing the changing environment of printing. We have a congress of committees that has explored diversification in great depth. In addition, we have focus groups—OEMs and printers—that address issues and viable solutions.
For your audience, I think they would want to see what their vendors are offering. We encourage them to view this as an opportunity to find new solutions such as label printing. These are the type of things that are important for NAPCO, which is a combination of PRINTING United, SGIA, Printing Industries of America, and Idea Alliance. These disparate groups address everything to do with production print. These alliances are where we get our mission of bringing our audience together and having an answer for everyone.
Like every worthwhile event, there are opportunities to engage with OEM partners, network with fellow dealers, and look at other areas that they can potentially be involved in. They will also be exposed to innovative solutions that are significant. This is the largest and most diverse show in the world. That, by far, is our greatest value to independent dealers. Like everyone else, they need to diversify too.
FGC: What kind of turnout are you expecting, and who are the leading exhibitors?
Subers: At our event in 2019, we had 30,000 attendees. I would love to match 2019 but am looking to do a little bit over that. We have sold more booth space than in 2019 with several months to go. We have the right to be optimistic because of what we have done. We added two or three Chinese companies to our list of exhibitors. HP has acquired a 21,000-square-foot area [and will exhibit] PageWide and Indigo [products]. You add the number of new product launches these last couple of years that were postponed, and we will see some of that. We have engaged with the Latin American market, which opens the door wide for those in Spanish-speaking companies. They see PRINTING United as the universe show.
FGC: What should attendees be sure not to miss?
Subers: We have one million square feet of solutions. There is a great deal to see and give attendees something to think about in terms of what is next for your organization. More specifically, they should look at the packaging, label, and mailing fulfillment solutions. We want to address all segments. There may also be a lot of solutions they may have not known existed.
FGC: Any final message to our audience?
Subers: PRINTING United is the backbone of NAPCO Media’s ability to reach the widest audience possible. What enables us to have this kind of access starts with our own advertising within our channels, including videos and articles. We have 25 to 28 media companies that are engaged with us. We believe we will reach the widest possible audience.
There will be many people coming together at this North American exhibition and conference. We invite the independent dealers to join the party as this is going to be a coming-together that people will remember simply because of the product releases. We have 500 exhibitors already signed up with a realistic opportunity to reach 600 with something for everybody.
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