The event took place from Tuesday to Thursday this week (21-23 March) in Hall 2 of Birmingham’s NEC.

While it had a slightly smaller footprint than its 2022 return last year, the show’s first outing since March 2019 due to Covid-19, SDUK organisers told Printweek that there were “over 100 companies and brands” exhibiting, which was up on last year.

Visitor numbers had not yet been published at the time of writing, but last year’s show attracted almost 4,000 in total.

Major names exhibiting included Roland DG, Epson UK, Premier, Hexis UK, Vivid Laminating Technologies, and SwissQprint. While few companies were launching products, perhaps waiting for the Fespa Global Print Expo in Munich in May, many were showing recently unveiled machines.

Mimaki’s exclusive distributor for the UK and Ireland, Hybrid Services, for example, was demonstrating the recently unveiled TxF150-75 direct-to-film (DTF) inkjet printer on its stand.

Others were highlighting new partnerships, including Josero, which was demonstrating the Fujifilm Acuity Prime – it has recently began supplying the range to customers in the UK.

PrintIQ was demonstrating Version 46 of its cloud-based MIS, which includes over 30 new features or updates, and UK marketing manager David McGuiness said Version 47 would be coming out “very quick on the heels of that”, in around the next two months, and will add a focus on carbon efficiency.

“A lot of people have got Version 46 already, and others are deciding if they need the new features or not – it’s one of those steady progressions. But once you understand what the system does, those things only make it better.”

Erskine Stewart, managing director of SwissQprint, said the show had been a worthwhile exercise for the business.

“It’s been good for us. We’ve had a lot of our customers come, which is great, and we’ve had some very good leads. It’s a nice environment for us to come to because there are still businesses out there who don’t know who SwissQprint is, who can come and experience what we’re doing and see the machines, so it’s fantastic.”

Morgana Systems marketing manager Wendy Baker said the company had received a very positive reaction to the ColorCut SC6000 'on-demand' digital sheet cutter, with interest from “a real mixture of companies from small commercial printers through to schools”.

She added the company brought more kit to the show than it had last year, and had seen a lot of interest, as “people are looking for a bit of diversity” in their product offerings.

Brendan Perring, general manager at the IPIA, said that while the trade association does typically tend to pick up around 5-10 new members from the show, that is not its primary purpose for having a stand.

“We have about 20 members exhibiting at the show and we go round and make sure that we talk to every member, and we do video case studies and testimonials on them that we promote back out on social media and in articles afterwards. So it’s really like we’re trying to make sure that we’re supporting and promoting our members’ interests, as almost a sort of satellite sales office.”

He said trends included a big push from printers into the wide-format flatbed market, being driven by market growth in 8x4ft [2.44x1.22m] rigid graphic applications, as well as automation, with several of the show’s exhibitors showing different ways in automating processes, by way of offerings like carbon reduction or workflow management.

Show features included the Hexis UK Wrap Battle, and The Sign Studio, which featured live demonstrations and practical workshops hosted by experienced signmaker Paul Hughes.

The International Sign Association UK (ISA-UK) hosted the SDUK Explains Lounge as well as a new feature, the Sign Surgery. Both were well attended, with several of the presentations at the Explains Lounge standing room only.

One of the sessions on Wednesday, when Printweek visited the show, focused on how women can be supported in the signs and graphics industry.

Hosted by Izabella Ivanovici, director at INV Recruitment, and Sarah Winterbottom, group sales director at Soyang Josero, it featured an all-male panel, “as it is important to work together”.

Focusing on the current picture of women in the sector, Colin Sinclair McDermott, founder of The Online Print Coach, said “there are definitely more women moving into production but at the moment it’s still very much the creative side, graphic design and marketing” where they are working.

The session also touched on young people coming into the sector, and Lee Garnett, continuous improvement manager at MacroArt, said the business had started a new Early Careers Ambassadors programme, on which are two of its female staff and one male.

The business has also been engaging with schools and this has encouraged 81 students from the 250 it engaged with to sign up for an upcoming open day at MacroArt's site on 29 April. It said 64% of these sign-ups are female.

“That really highlights an important fact that the interest is out there, but [the industry] is not doing enough at this level to get the right minds into us at this stage,” Garnett said.

“We’re already seeing a skills gap appear in the industry, I think that within five to 10 years we could start to see a bit of a problem. [During the pandemic] a lot of people went off into different areas and sectors of work and haven’t come back.”

He advised printers that “all it takes is a phone call to a local school” and they will assist in engaging businesses with their students.

Sign & Digital UK event director Jenny Matthew told Printweek at the show: “It’s been just as good as last year, if not better. Lots of exhibitors are selling kit, and different types of exhibitors. Really good conversations are being had and business is being done.

“We’ve got a lot of new [exhibitors], which is what the visitor audience wanted to see [from our research]. I’ve spoken to quite a few visitors over the last few days, and they’ve really enjoyed it. Obviously, they want to see the regulars, and those companies are here, but they also want to see new things. They’re looking for inspiration and something a bit different and I think we’ve delivered.”

She added rebookings were going “fantastically well”, with a major manufacturer not exhibiting this year having flown in and now looking to book “a good-sized stand” next year.

SDUK organiser, Faversham House, is working towards net zero, and is looking to calculate the carbon footprint of the event, with a view to then reducing its carbon footprint next year.

"We're already reducing it where we can all the time, but I've been going round and counting up how many big, small, and medium machines there are, and whether they were shrinkwrapped on delivery," said Matthew.

"And all of the visitor, exhibitor, and organiser registrations featured questions on how people travelled here, so by postcode and mode of transport we can calculate the carbon that's been used to get here. We get energy consumption from the venue so they can tell us exactly how much energy has been used over the build-up and breakdown. So there's a lot of work going on in the background to see how as an event organiser and an industry we can be more sustainable."

The 2024 show will take place at the NEC from 27 to 29 February.