A heavy turnout of printers pushed up attendance figures for last weekend's Visual Impact 2016 show in Brisbane by 29 percent from the previous show two years ago, in another indication that commercial printers are moving further into the wide format market.
“A lot of printing companies came along and attendance was up 29 percent from 2014, largely because we had stands from printing companies like Currie Group and Canon," said Peter Harper, GM, exhibitions, Visual Connections Australia. "Saturday was busy with a lot of smaller companies coming in from the regions. Overall I got a lot of good feedback from the exhibitors. Everyone seemed to have a good show.”
Major sponsors Roland DG, Graphic Art Mart, Hewlett Packard and Mimaki all had prominent stands at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre. Currie Group, arguably the biggest supplier in the print and graphic industry in Australia and New Zealand, set up its iconic mobile showroom, which took up an area of 20m x 12m and became the ‘must-see exhibitor.’
A mix up in dates saw the New Zealand Sign Association hold its trade show and conference in Christchurch over the same weekend. Even so there was still a good showing of Kiwis in Brisbane and to add insult to injury, the Australians won the Car Wrap Competition at the Christchurch show.
Spicers won the award for the best shell scheme stand at the Visual Impact Brisbane 2016 trade show. Based on a Spicer’s retail store concept the stand revolved around the company’s new laser measuring device, Spike.
Roland DG showcased recently released printers and engraving solutions, as well as a range of applications and workflows.
The brand new TrueVIS VG Series printer/cutters attracted many visitors keen to see the new technology and print quality of Roland’s latest printer/cutter in person. Not only were they impressed with the striking output and vibrant colours created by the new FlexFire print heads and TrueVIS ink, but also the other advanced features of the VG series including the Bluetooth-enabled technology, said a statement.
The dye sublimation area featured the recently released Texart XT-640, and showcased the full dye sublimation workflow from print to finished product. A range of items such as mugs, drink bottles and tiles were produced on the stand, and a range of other unique samples were on display including sportswear, fashion items and even a snowboard.
The personalisation area was a big hit with stand attendees, and included UV printing, engraving and heat transfer applications. There was much excitement around UV printing on the LEF-300 that was printing double sided keyrings. An onscreen tally kept count throughout the show, and as it came to an end, a total of 1302 keyrings had been printed, along with hundreds of posters printed on the SOLJET EJ-640 for the Starlight Children’s Foundation.