After three days of high intensity action from the Sydney Olypmic Showground the doors were closed and the last 6000 printers who visited were making their way home, having experienced the industry buzz that only a show can provide. Whether this translates into an industry uplift remains to be seen.
PrintEx 2015 will be remembered as the first print show in Australia with no offset presses on the floor. There are reasons of course, not the least of which is the high cost of installing and de-installing presses, especially compared with digital print systems, which are in essence take off the back of the van and plug in.
However it is also indicative of the direction the industry is going in, both with the drive to digital and the changing of the established order. Four of the big five stands at PrintEx were from companies that at the start of the century were barely involved in print – Fuji Xerox, Canon, Ricoh and Konica Minolta. In fact the latter two weren’t at all. Currie Group had the biggest stand, 16 years ago it would have had a Shinohara offset press as its centrepiece, this time it was the HP Indigo.
Responses to the show were mixed, not everyone was impressed with the lack of offset action, not only were there no presses, there were only two CTP units, and only one finishing system for non-digital print.
Vendors are hailing PrintEx15 as a success with millions of dollars worth of printing kit sold off stands at the show to printers across the country.
Fuji Xerox is claiming the most sales of the major digital manufacturers with 20 printers worth more than $2m snapped up from its stand.
The bumper sales include a Nuvera144MX MICR production printer to Lamson Paragon subsidiary Cheque-Mates, which chief executive Rodney Frost says he will use to attract more cheque printing trade work.
“A lot of cheque printers have old machines that need updating, but with cheques declining so fast it might not be worth the investment,” he says.
Other Fuji Xerox sales include two Versant 80 Presses to Lexdata and one to D&O Printing, Doculink and Kwik Kopy Gosford; Versant 2100 Presses to On Time Print and Any Colour You Like; Color 1000i Presses to Bambra Press and Fine Line Print & Copy; an Acuity LED 1600 to Pronto Direct; an Epson T7200 to Kwik Kopy St Leonards, and a Color J75 Press and D110 copier/printer to Law Image.
Executive general manager of marketing Simon Lane says: “The industry is excited by this new era in printing and agrees with us that effective print is a combination of intelligent content, creative design, targeted marketing, brilliant output and effective distribution.”
Currie got a good return on investment for its monster stand, selling 22 machines including Scodix Ultra Pro digital enhancement presses to both CMYKhub and NZ outfit Fuzed.
CMYKhub managing director Trent Nankervis says the machine will allow the trade printer to bring spot UV work it had been outsourcing back in-house.
CMYKhub also picked up a Jeti Mira, the first global order of the wide format printer, and Anapurna 2540i from Agfa.
Currie has also sold HP Indigo 10000s to Port Printing and Print Media Group, which also bought a HP T230 inkjet, and an Indigo 7800 to Dashing Print, and Horizon finishing kits to Twin Loops, Clarke Murphy Print, NPS Corporate, Monotone, New Litho, and TNE Tools. It also sold a HP Indigo WS6800, an AB Graphics converting machine, three Cron CTP machines, three Horizon RD 4055 diecutters, a BQ280 perfect binder, and a Hof 400 to unnamed printers.
In addition to its two sales to CMYKhub, Agfa also sold a Jeti Mira and two Anapurna 2540is to Longbeach Printing, another Mira to Peak Digital, and an Acorta cutter.
Ricoh made 14 sales for a $2m windfall, including C7100/110s to DNA Labels, Zipform, Midway Print Solutions, Frontline Printing, Shire Print ‘n’ Graphics, and Trendsetting; made its first Australian sale of the Pro C9100 to Inhouse Print & Design – plus another four C7100s and three Pro 8120s. National sales manager Raj Chandiok says 260 people came by.
Konica Minolta moved six printers including a bizhub C1070 Press to Hobart printer Typeface, and a bizhub C1085 and C1070 to Ulladulla Printing.
Canon, which has its entire stand printed by Canon equipment including banners, posters, decals, coasters, tables and all its marketing collateral is keeping its sold cards close to its chest.
Kodak focused on promoting its Achieve platemaker and managed two sales, but is waiting for deposits from the buyers before releasing names.
Wide format manufacturers and their resellers made bundles of sales, Spicers made $3m in 11 sales including EFI Vutek GS335LX printers to ADS Australia and Imagebox, and the first Elitron Kombo SD+ cutting table in Queensland to Queensland Screenprints (QPS). QPS manager Katie Ripper says it will consolidate three finishing machines, streamlining its operations and allowing it to expand.
Spicers says it has also sold one other GS335LX and Kombo SD+, two Mimaki JV400LX and one JFX200- 2513 printers, and three Rollsroller flatbed applicators.
SwissQprint reseller Pozitive has sold one big Nyala 2 flatbed printer to Sydney firm Look Print, with more expected, and Epson says its various distributors around the show have sold eight T5200 and five T7200 wide format printers; six F2000 t-shirt printer; and two SureColor S5600 and one S7600 eco-solvent models.
The numbers should of course not be taken as gospel. As Konica Minolta national sales manager George Fryer points out, a lot of suppliers claim that they have had huge sales ‘but they are just confirmation of sales that they have worked on for weeks and months’.
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