IGAS is ‘opaque’ for the average Aussie printer

James Cryer sees through the hype of the Japanese trade show but is a big fan of the people and the culture.
 
Last week’s IGAS, housed in a spectacular inverted pyramid structure that can be seen for miles across the flat Tokyo landscape is the showcase of the modern Japanese printing industry. The trade exhibition was a serious attempt to shift the centre of gravity away from Europe’s traditional dominance with its Drupa and IPEX shows being the default venues for us Anglophiles.

But IGAS proved to be much less of an international exhibition and more a dramatic showcase to the local industry for Japanese brands . The international flavour was somewhat compromised by the lack of English signage and English-speaking exhibit staff – an issue Japan will have to address if it wishes to cultivate a bigger audience.

Photo Caption: there may be lots of new techlnoogy at IGAS but it's the craft that gets James involved. Here he tries his arm at an old Eagle hand-driven press.
One Australian supplier I met with said that for the average Australian printer the show would be “a complete waste of time.” There was nothing on show that will not be more readily accessible in the local Heidelberg or CPI showrooms within a short time.
Mind you, he found the backroom meetings he had with manufacturers and the discussions on signing new agencies very worthwhile. In this sense IGAS is a trade show for Australian and New Zealand suppliers, rather than printers.

Having said that, the power-house names such as Komori, Akiyama and Mitsubishi were well represented – as ironically, were most of the big European house-brands – testament to the importance of the bourgeoning Japanese domestic market.
 
Interestingly, the philosophical battle-lines are being drawn up when it comes to the preferred configuration of big perfecting presses, with the Euros (Heidelberg and MAN Roland) doggedly sticking to the “long-press” tradition, while the leading Japanese brands (Komori and Akiyama) favouring the smaller-footprint “double-decker” configuration. It’ll be interesting to see how history judges these divergent design concepts.
 
Three other observations emerged –
 
•    the perception that Japan has a stronger focus (than us) on transactional printing, with several obscure domestic brands of such equipment on display (as yet unknown here – an agency opportunity?).
•    unlike several of our recent Australian print exhibitions, which some felt were dominated by wide-web ink-jet machines, surprisingly there was relatively little activity in “banners and posters”. Maybe the Japanese like their buildings and Nissan Cedrics unadorned?
•    the increasing trend towards factory-fitted “customising” of offset presses to owners’ specifications, especially in terms of coating options, and the ability to allow one press to handle a wider spectrum of paper/board weights.
 
Full marks must go to the impressive architecture of the venue - a futuristic pastiche of steel, glass and aluminium with echoes of a vast, upturned pyramid. Access was easy – by high-speed rail or expressway, across the slender new Rainbow Bridge – or by ferry across Tokyo Bay.
 
Would I recommend it? Probably, on the strength of the Japanese desire to help and to please. Their culture, however, is so opaque to us that you feel you are a voyeur passing through, without fully understanding the deep traditions.
 
And another thing in favour of IGAS – you don’t get jet-lag!