A Year Without ACUP

IT WAS with a sense of dread that I opened the e-mail from Richard Griffin last month. Griffin, manager of Central Piedmont Community College’s in-plant (and occasional writer for IPG) had graciously and enthusiastically volunteered to host the 2009 Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) conference. He and his co-hosts had made grand preparations for the event in Myrtle Beach, S.C., lined up excellent speakers and brought in strong vendor support. Then, after months of promotion, came this e-mail:

“We regret to tell you that, in consultation with the ACUP Board, we’ve postponed ACUP 2009.” With one click of the send button, the hearts of past attendees around the globe were broken. For you see, ACUP did not wither away due to lack of interest; rather it met its fate due to economy-related travel bans instituted at hundreds of schools around the country. University managers who hadn’t missed an ACUP in ages were told they could not attend.

The cancellation of one of the in-plant industry’s main events was a shock. It’s not that I hadn’t seen it coming; over the previous week, I’d read a flurry of e-mails begging anyone who hadn’t gotten around to registering to quickly do so. But the sheer love that ACUP attendees have for their conference made it hard to imagine this ever happening.

Always a well-attended, lively affair, ACUP had taken place every year since 1964. It was one of the first conferences I attended, back in 1995, and it has always been my favorite. I think this is because of the openness and enthusiasm of attendees, who have accepted me as one of their own. Newcomers always feel welcome, and conversations flow freely.

To keep ACUP alive, Griffin had been willing to hold a scaled-down event. But hotels can be sticklers when you’ve signed a contract promising to fill a large number of rooms. Also, some sponsoring vendors had become reluctant to participate in an event with so few attendees.

Sadly, a few in-plant managers from the UK and Australia had already bought their plane tickets. (I bought mine too. Now, thanks to the airline’s jaw-dropping change fee, I have a $20 credit left over.) But no one has anything but praise for Griffin and his co-hosts for all the work they did. Talk of ACUP 2010 is already underway. (One hopes that by then universities will have found other ways to eliminate waste and redundancy instead of arbitrarily cutting travel. Educators banning education—there’s a smart plan.)

Based on ACUP’s fate, I’m tempted to wring my hands over the implications for other conferences in these bad economic times. However, registration for the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association’s conference is reportedly above last year’s levels. And the On Demand Conference, which has dramatically stepped up the in-plant focus of its seminars (see page 6), reports that preregistration numbers are up “significantly” so far. So at least two conferences for in-plant managers will be taking place this spring. Still...I wish there were three.