2023 SIGN & DISPLAY: SCORE AT WORLD CUP

The biggest sporting event in Australia since the Olympics swings into action tomorrow, as the Women’s World Cup kicks off, with the global competition proving a boon to printers around Australia and New Zealand.

With printed match-day programmes, posters of the Matildas' stars, the official Tournament Guide, kids' handbooks, display graphics for the stadiums and the fanzones, backpacks, and a host of printed garments including t-shirts, hoodies, tracksuits, even baby onesies, the month-long tournament is providing welcome work to printers of all kinds.

Melbourne-based Visual Solutions Australia is one of those printers that has been working to enhance the fan experience for the 1.3 million people who have bought tickets to the month-long soccer festival.

It has produced the giant Matildas shirts adorning World Cup stadiums, with the shirts produced on the company’s new EFI VUTEk FabriVU 340i+ soft signage printer, which was supplied by Currie Group. It was one of the first jobs Visual Solutions has printed on the new FabriVU.

The EFI FabriVU 340i+ prints directly to a wide range of polyester-based materials up to 3.4-meters wide, in applications such as exhibit graphics, backlit graphics, retail fixture wraps, front-lit graphics, block-out banners, and flags, as well as fabric interior décor.

It prints at up to 480sqm an hour in outdoor mode, or 248sqm an hour for high quality backlit mode. Resolution is up to 2,400 dpi.

The Women’s World Cup is being played at 10 stadiums across Australia and New Zealand, with the opening games tomorrow in Sydney and Auckland.

Practically the only item not being printed for the tournament are the matchday tickets, only available in mobile format, and only for those who can get through Fifa's tortuous online booking process.