Visual Impact Image Expo continues to pull in the visitors; the feel of the show on day two is even higher density of visitors, which must be very pleasing to organisers and exhibitors alike. There are more 'sold' signs on equipment too; how many are down to show impulse buying or pre-show deals who knows - but it's good to see. The swissQprint Nyala is off to Sydney's Wizardry Imaging & Signs after the show.
HP' Latex 3000 sports two sold stickers; one to Printforce/Heroprint in Sydney and another to The Printcentre Group's Rosebery, Sydney plant. The Canon OEM'd Zund ProCut cutter was also sold, to new wide format powerhouse Avon Graphics of Melbourne, who has discovered life beyond pure embellishing and the next generation of the Hone family flexes its muscle.
EFI has a big presence at VIEE with equipment on 2 stands - Spicers and DES. It was on the DES booth that I was able to catch up with Scott Wood, EFI's wide format Product Manager worldwide, all the way from Meredith, New Hampshire. Scott was naturally pleased at the sale of the show H1625 LED to Newcastle's Ownsprint (see separate story); and is bullish about how LED is impacting choice of wide format machines. "We still have some conventional lamp UV curing machines because there is an initial cost factor," he says, "but these LED UV lamps are rated at 10,000 [or longer] hours instead of around 1,000 hours and they are pretty consistent right up to end time, with limited degradation in bulb power."
He continues, "The 1625 LED is a great mid-level printer and adds versatility because, with low-heat LED curing, you can print on a lot more media such as heat-sensitive plastics that would curl under hot conventional UV lamps." Released only six months ago, the H1625 LED has been a huge success worldwide as printers move away from solvents to a greener, lower energy use and more versatile solution. Classed as 'entry level' the H1625 still packs a production punch at up to 42.7 square metres per hour for non close-inspection graphics.
Also at VIEE and on the DES stand was VP Asia-Pacific Steve Green, who has a massive responsibility for all of EFI from Japan down to New Zealand and across as far as India. Steve is well known in Australia from his time with Oce, Ricoh and Creo/Kodak. On the importance of wide format to EFI's impressive stable of software, server and MIS products he says: "I suppose wide format could account for anything up to one third of EFI's business, and it is growing rapidly. As more machines go into the market, more ink is used and we are finding our existing machines-in-the-field are producing more work than ever, adding to the ink volumes."
Green is full of praise for UV and LED UV; "It's transformed the market," he says. "Solvent inks are always a challenge in terms of VOCs, OH&S and drying time. With a UV cured print, you can go straight to finishing. LED UV is even now featured in our 5 metre billboard printers, such as the EFI VUTEk GS5500LXr released at the Shanghai Ad & Sign show recently. It was a sensation. No VOCs and solvent issues and a 7 picolitre grayscale droplet size that rivals smaller close-inspection machines."
The UV transformation of wide and grand format digital must surely now be complete - VUTEk practically invented super-wide format printing in the 1990s prior to its acquisition by EFI in 2005 and today LED UV is part and parcel of 5 metre roll machines. "One important thing EFI bought to wide format since the VUTEk and subsequent acqusitions such as Rastek is a through knowledge of colour management. It was practically unknown in wide format, except for proofing, before then. With ColorProof XF as part of our Rip/workflow offering, we were able to bring wide format printers up to a high standard of colour management almost overnight."
The DES stand was a hive of activity at every level but we managed to catch up with general manager Russell Cavenagh and wide format business manager Daniel Aoli for a brief chat. On the VIEE show itself, Cavenagh says: "Well, we could always use more people but it's been good so far. We play our own game, we don't focus on the competition too much. A DES customer knows they will get a lot of value-add, a lot of technical support and shared knowledge."
Daniel Aoli agrees, "It's all about the value we add to the products we supply, someone buying EFI equipment from us will know that that they get years of experience in Rip and colour management issues, that we are responsive and committed to their success."
Looking around the show, you could be forgiven for thinking that VIEE was doubling up as a performance car sales showroom. There are five Ford XR6s lined up in the area designate for the ASGA & NZSDA Car Wrap Masters competition and elsewhere there is a Jaguar XK coupe, some Audis, a huge Ford truck, a couple of Holdens and a VW work van - all testament to the growth of vehicle wrapping.
The scope and depth of the Sign and Display industries is also on display in that digital ( mostly LED) displays are there, cutters and routers, 3D thermoformed letters and neon. There is even a section for gun 'weeders' to compete in the 'Speed Weed' challenge. Weeding is the removal of unwanted areas from cut sign vinyl.
Watching the skills of the young weeders there, I am moved to advocate digitally printing finished lettered signs on clear vinyl and to heck with weeding but traditional skills die hard and the demand for adhesive vinyl cut lettering and logo signs endures.
Can this industry continue its pell-mell growth and diversity into the future? Can it sustain umpteen new entrants into the flatbed UV equipment sector? Like all gold rushes, there are many prospectors staking their claims but a handful of major mines protecting their lucrative lodes - which is ultimately ink sales. Just from the top of the head, anyone considering a flatbed UV - and there are many - can chose from; HP, EFI, Canon, Screen, Inca, Fujifilm, Mimaki, Mutoh, Roland, HandTop, Flora, Agfa, Jetrix, SwissQPrint, Jeti, Durst, Docan, Gandy, Teckwin - and there are many unrepresented in Australia and New Zealand such as the exquisitely-named Shenzen Sky Air-ship Digital Printing Equipment Company.
Contrast this list of around two dozen with your choice of production digital cut-sheet printers: Xerox, Canon, Konica-Minolta, Ricoh, HP, Kodak; the 'big six' with a smattering of heel-nippers such as Riso, MGI and office-type machines. It would suggest consolidation is on the horizon in flatbed UV but how far away is that horizon?
Signage, display and POP are not like offset flexo and gravure; they resist commoditisation and even when it threatens, new applications, materials and creative ideas surface - look at digitally-printed textiles as an example and of course vehicle wrapping.
Trivia-time; vehicle wrapping began only in the 1990s on London taxis but it was German taxis that really drove the market. Why? Anyone who has ever been to a Drupa or Fespa Munich will know that German taxis are two things; Mercedes and beige. Bad beige; boring grandad's cardigan-beige. In those pre-digital print days, what was known as 'marking films' came to the rescue. Wrap any coloured Merc in a beige marking film to conform with German regulations and - that's a bingo, ja? No one wanted to buy used beige Mercs due to the stigma attached to driving a used taxi so, rather than an expensive re-spray, they were either wrapped to begin with and peeled upon sale to reveal nice black, blue, or red paint; or began life as beige paint and were wrapped for resale.
This year's Visual Impact Image Expo has proved that there is plenty of life left in the creative graphic arts and profitability is far better than churning out B3, B2 or B1 sheets of offset print. But combine the two and you have a more compelling market proposition - which is why every offset and digital cut-sheet printer should have some form of wide format offering.
That's the theme for PrintEx 2015 next May, co-located with VIEE: the supposed 'senior' part of the industry can learn from what was once viewed as derisory signwriting and screen process printing.
It's all about Visual Impact.