Print Efficiently partners praise first week of event

Print Efficiently organisers and partners have reported a strong opening week to the fifth edition of the annual event.

Event partners have praised the first two days of the event, reporting "high-quality" visitors and strong leads, with many more expected to come.

The collaborative event, from Tuesday (6 October) to the end of today (8 October) and again from 20 October to 22 October is being held jointly this year at the showrooms of key partners Intelligent Finishing Systems (IFS) and Apex Digital Graphics.

The show covers most aspects of commercial print from web-to-print, MIS, colour measurement and consumables through to litho, digital and wide-format print and finishing.

Following Apex's recent relocation to new premises, the two businesses are now located 20m apart.

This year’s main attraction from Apex is a range of Cron CTP equipment that it is running on a five-colour Ryobi 755 with LED-UV system.

Apex managing director Bob Usher said: “We’ve already made some really strong leads and seen a lot of good customers. I’m a firm believer that exhibitions like this really work.”

IFS is the exclusive UK agent for Horizon post-press equipment. Horizon Europe sales and marketing manager Paul Jakobson said: “For us this event is about the quality of the visitors.

“It gives us the opportunity to meet existing as well as new customers and we have tried to make our dealers in other countries run events similar to Print Efficiently.”

IFS joint managing director Bryan Godwyn said the second week would be very similar, and that the show format provides customers that can’t make the first week with another chance to visit.

“Print Efficiently is a very personal event where people can come down and meet people,” said Godwyn.

“Around 80% of our sales are from repeat business so we really like to work with our customers to understand what problems they are encountering and where they see the market going.”

Fujifilm is exhibiting at the show for the first time this year and showing the Acuity LED 1600 II, which it launched last month as a faster and more capable successor to the Acuity LED 1600.

Fujifilm demonstration manager Martin Burton said: “We’ve seen a renewed interest in this machine from the packaging market, as it provides a cost-effective way to produce samples and prototypes.”

Manufacturer and pressroom consumables supplier CyanX is also attending the event, and showing its Eco-seal aqueous pressure-seal coating.

CyanX managing director Richard Mawson said: “Eco-seal is really taking off and there’s also major interest in the US, where we recently showed it at Graph Expo.

“We’ve made some strong leads already at Print Efficiently, it’s the third year we’ve come and it’s a very personable event. We see people who have come to see us but we might also get an introduction to people who have come along to see somebody else.”

Print Efficiently also features educational seminars, which will continue with two sessions from Profitable Print Relationships founder Matthew Parker on 21 October.

Independent Print Industries Association (IPIA) chief executive Marian Stefani provided business advice for printers in the first two seminars held yesterday (7 October).

The other Print Efficiently partners this year include Vpress, KAS, Colourbyte, Premier Paper, TSS, Renz, PDC and, for the first time this year, Imprint MIS.