From the Editor: A Memorable Show
Plane delay horror stories: everyone at Graph Expo had a tale to tell. With the sabotage of the air traffic control center in Aurora, Ill., occurring just days before the show, nearly everyone heading to Chicago was affected.
My own sob story wasn't too severe—just two-hour delays in each direction. But my colleagues at Printing Impressions got diverted to St. Louis, where they rode public transit to the Amtrak station for a six-hour rail trip to Chicago. Others got stranded in different cities and had to rent cars and drive there. So if you want to know what the real "talk of the show" was this year, I'll give you a hint: it wasn't inkjet.
For those who decided to skip Graph Expo this year, you may have picked a good one to miss—but only from the perspective of dodging travel headaches. Those who made it found a number of innovations awaiting them and larger-than-expected crowds filling the booths. For in-plants, there was plenty to do. Not only did IPG host three in-plant meetings—two breakfasts and a luncheon—but the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association held its own luncheon, and several educational sessions featured in-plant managers as speakers.
The show this year seemed to be bursting with in-plant managers. I saw hundreds of them, not just at the events we organized, but walking the aisles, checking out equipment, hanging around the IPMA's "In-plant Place" networking lounge and attending the evening activities hosted by vendors. I chatted with in-plant managers from Iowa State University, Cincinnati Insurance, Simon Fraser University, Amtrak, Lockheed Martin, Station Casinos, California State University-Sacramento, Michigan Farm Bureau, the New York State Bar Association, Penn State, the State of Tennessee, Nestlé Purina PetCare, the World Bank, Arizona State University, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and so many more. It really was quite an impressive showing of in-plants.
For my part, I was pulled in so many directions I'm surprised I'm still in one piece. Between running the three IPG events, attending numerous press conferences, touring booths to see the latest equipment, writing articles for the daily show e-newsletter, stopping to talk with countless industry friends and taking pictures and videos of it all, I was pretty worn out by the end of my fourth day in McCormick Place.
Many of the in-plants I talked with were at Graph Expo with plans to purchase. Two managers, in fact, told me they had bought bindery equipment right off the show floor (taking advantage of the 10% show discount). Several vendors also mentioned major show floor purchases, a reassuring sign that printers see better days ahead.
I won't go into the equipment and software innovations I saw, but I will say that the payback for those who attended Graph Expo 2014 was well worth the travel irritations they had to endure to get there.
Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.