Crowds Return to Graph Expo

A year after the disappointing attendance levels of PRINT 09, Graph Expo 2010 seemed like a real trade show again. The aisles were full of people, who massed around new products, and kept vendors busy with demos. (Watch three show videos on this site. Return to home page and click the Video tab at the top.)

With the big offset vendors like Heidelberg and Komori taking a break from the show this year, offset presses were hard to find. (This editor counted only three companies with presses: Presstek, Baum (with its small BaumPrint 18) and, tucked away in a back corner, a company called Gronhi Graphics International, showing the Chinese-built GH524 four-color press.

Though certainly unintended, the absence of the big offset vendors sent a message to attendees about offset's place in the industry—a message amplified by the increased presence of digital print vendors like Xerox, HP, Kodak and Ricoh, all of whom had prominent booth locations.

What's more, offset's diminished presence coincided with the first U.S. showing of several large inkjet presses from Kodak, Fuji and Screen U.S.A., making this show worthy of the title "The Inkjet Graph Expo." (HP's much touted T350 Color Inkjet Web Press appeared only on video.)

Numerous in-plants were spotted walking the aisles of Graph Expo. Dozens of them packed a conference room for a lunchtime session on the show's third day, to hear vendors and fellow in-plant managers talk about how they can incorporate integrated marketing into their operations.

Though equipment was certainly the main focus at Graph Expo, several vendors stressed new programs designed to help customers build business with their equipment. Others tried to move the focus to new applications customers can provide using their equipment.

Here's a quick look at some of the more impressive new equipment seen by IPG at Graph Expo:

• The Kodak Prosper 5000XL inkjet press, a production web press with a print width of up to 24.5˝ at speeds up to 650 fpm.

• The Screen U.S.A. Truepress Jet520ZZ single-pass inkjet web press, which prints variable, full-color data at 721 fpm.

• The FUJIFILM Digital Inkjet J Press 720, which has a paper delivery and exit like that of a traditional offset press.

• The Xerox Color 1000 Press (introduced at On Demand), which prints 2,400x2,400 dpi at 100 ppm.

• The Xerox iGen4 EXP, now with an enlarged sheet size of 14.2x26˝.

• Xerox also showed the Espresso Book Machine (EBM), which can produce a 300-page paperback book with a color cover in less than five minutes.

• The Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C8000 (introduced at On Demand), which prints at 80 color ppm on a variety of stock, up to 13x19˝.

• The Canon imagePRESS C7010VP digital color press, which prints up to 4,200 letter-sized sheets of media per hour, regardless of paper weight.

• The HP Indigo 7500 digital press, a 13x19˝ sheetfed digital printer capable of printing 120 color letter pages per minute.

• The InfoPrint 5000 multipurpose continuous form inkjet printer.

• The Epson Stylus Pro 7900CTP system, which combines an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 printer with a plate curing device, enabling in-plant to image aluminum plates, reportedly good for up to 20,000 impressions.

• The Mitsubishi Imaging Processless DigiPlate PDP, a true chemical-free offset lithographic printing plate.

• Muller Martini’s Scaleable SigmaLine technology, designed for the production of digital books.

• Gateway Bookbinding System’s new Koilmatic electric tabletop automatic coil inserter for plastic spiral binding, designed for the digital print market.

• MGI's new DF360 5-in-1 digital paper finishing unit, which provides duplex lamination, cutting, slitting, creasing and perforating.

• The Standard Finishing Systems CABS 6000 perfect binding system, which includes the MG-600 gatherer, SB-17 seventeen-clamp perfect binder, and HT-110 three-knife trimmer.

Watch for a full show review in the November issue of IPG.