The debut show will be held at The Lowry in Machester's Salford Quays on 10-11 March 2015 and will feature partners from across the entire digital print workflow.

Key partner details will be announced in late January, following consultation with clients at the manufacturer's customer forum on 14 January 2015.

Duplo UK managing director Peter Jolly said: "We've put down a marker in terms of the date and the venue but the event will be driven by customers telling us what they want - it's a blank page that we will fill in in January once we find out what our customers want in the way of partners, themes and applications."

He added: "We're growing very well in the North and the Midlands. It's an exciting part of the world for us and a recurring theme from our customer forums and our debriefs from Ipex and London Calling has been that it would be nice to see Duplo in the North and to see finishing in the North.

"My gut tells me it will be a quite different event to London Calling because the people driving it are different; we're hoping that customers will come to both."

Jolly said that events were easier to organise than a couple of years ago because manufacturers were less obsessed with how much kit to bring and more interested in demonstrating added-value applications to their customers.

"Many suppliers have woken up to the fact that - not just with events - you can spend three months debating it internally or you can make one phone call to a customer, save a lot of time and probably be a lot more accurate with the result," he added.

Duplo expects the event to become an annual fixture, but Jolly said he was flexible on the location and that future events could be in the North West, for instance.