European gravure specialists to descend on Turin

Printing and publishing trends will come under the spotlight later this month when ERA, the European Rotogravure Association, holds its annual conference in Turin.

The theme for the event is "new dawn for publication gravure", and speakers include representatives from Mondadori, Ikea, Burgo Group and Burda Druck.

Dr Kai Hudetz from Germany's Institute for Consumer Research will also speak about print versus online retailing, and how consumer habits have changed.

And Kodak's regional marketing director for digital printing Erwin Busselot will highlight the potential for inkjet imprinting systems to be combined with gravure to offer additional flexibility.

ERA said that despite massive structural changes in the gravure market, gravure printing of magazines and catalogues in Europe still amounts to some 4m tonnes of print on paper.

The two-day event from 24-25 September also includes a visit to the nearby Cerutti factory to see its new Aurora gravure press, which the firm claims is more cost-effective for "mid-size runs" of circa 250,000 than large-format web offset presses.

For further details visit www.era.eu.org.