Every year, six million business travellers set their sights on the bright, bright city. If you want to make a song and dance about a flashy new piece of tech, or wine and dine your clients, where better than Sin City?

On 10 September, Printing United Expo returned to Las Vegas for the second time. Launched by Elvis strutting down the Canon red carpet, it threw open the doors to an American market hungry to learn about the latest developments in printing tech.

Set in the centre of this improbable city on a dusty plain, the three-day show hosted 800 exhibitors from 115 countries in the South and Central Halls of the Las Vegas Conference Centre.

This year, the show faced a tough challenge. Facing off against Drupa, it also clashed with Chicago’s LabelExpo; attendees were down at 25,000 against last year’s 28,000 despite an increased floorspace of 36,000sqm.

Drupa is enough of a challenge – “It sucks up marketing dollars,” as Ford Bowers, president of organiser Printing United Alliance says – but the clash with LabelExpo was just plain bad luck.

Printing United had been bumped from its usual October slot by its hosts – in typical Vegas style, in favour of a higher-paying customer – leaving Printing United to pick new dates in September; only later was the clash revealed.

“No one had published their dates,” explains Bowers.

“We looked at every competitor, so assumed it was free – well, if you don’t publish your dates, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Dealt a challenging hand, Printing United rose to the occasion. Predictably, many of the shiniest new machines had had their debuts at Drupa, but even in the three short months from July to September, there was plenty of novelty to be found.

Just as in Europe, two forces can be plainly seen shaping the US print industry. Both come from ever-tightening profit margins: the search for productivity through automation and capturing more spend from existing customers and markets through diversification.

Manufacturers, obviously, have picked up on this. Perhaps the show’s most prolific launching manufacturer was Mimaki, which unveiled four new wide-format machines designed to help smaller businesses increase their productivity, penetrate further into niche production or diversify across new areas.

Hitting the latter was Mimaki’s TS330, capable of up to 90sqm/hr, which can print either on transfer paper or direct-to-fabric with a single inkset, meaning printers don’t have to bet their capex money on either medium: they can flip between them by simply removing the platen.

“A lot of the printing market is really commoditised, and it’s hard to make a huge difference [for customers],” says Josh Hope, Mimaki’s US marketing director.

“So, we really strive to find those areas where we can. We hope it’s received as a real disruptor to the market.”

Other brands were more straightforwardly focused on automation. Of the machines not already seen at Drupa were a new automatically fed cutting table for Vanguard’s VK3220T-HS flatbed; Agfa’s new Grizzly autoloader and robots for the Tauro; Xerox’s budget Primelink C9200 light production printer; Konica Minolta’s C14010s, seen for the first time publicly since its closed-door viewings at Drupa; and Canon’s two new imagePrograf TX and TZ wide-format units.

As is to be expected, each boasts better speeds, slicker processes, and fewer touchpoints for users.

“We’re telling customers that digitisation is not just transforming the printing industry but transforming the entire workflow. It’s relevant to have a fast printer, but it’s even more important to have a streamlined process [behind it], take out hours of inefficiencies and deliver that throughput,” says Oscar Vidal, global director of product and strategy for HP’s Large Format print arm, which was showing off upgrades to its software.

“Something very specific to the US is that we have a demography of large companies, who are very keen on automation because it’s make-or-break.”

Artificial intelligence, Vidal says, is a key issue for many clients; Xerox’s Terry Antinora, head of product and engineering, concurs: “We’re hearing a lot of questions about automation, and how we’re going to introduce AI.

“Folks are really trying to understand and connect the dots between the capabilities we perceive AI to have, and how it can help their own operations.”

Printing United is, of course, Xerox’s first major showing of 2024, having not exhibited at Drupa. So why come to Las Vegas?

‘Return on investment’ is never far from any exhibitor’s lips; for Antinora, it just makes sense to come to more tailored shows. But rather than tailoring to a specific vertical, Printing United’s appeal is that it includes all of them, at a time when printers are increasingly crossing over into new verticals.

According to Printing United Alliance data, 68% of US printers have diversified beyond their primary segment. Nearly two in five (39%) have chosen to diversify into graphics and signage, manufacturers thus see the show as a golden opportunity to cross-sell, and printers see it as a one-stop shop.

“When we first launched Printing United in 2019, then had to cancel it for two years, not everybody really understood what we were doing, or why we were doing it,” Bowers says.

“Now, OEMs are coming here and getting leads from companies they didn’t know existed, who are looking to buy equipment they’ve never owned before. And that crossover generation of leads is really the focus of attention.”

“Printing United is a great opportunity to connect and listen to our customers,” adds Vidal.

“What’s a little bit unique is that this industry was very application fragmented.

“There’s commercial printing, screen printing, digital print – Printing United is unifying all of that. A lot of these commercial printing shops, and even screen printing shops, are looking at how to become a one-stop shop for their customers, whatever the product.”

To Andy Fetherman, CEO of Muller Martini North America, the show is simply a ‘must-see’ for US printers: “It brings together all the different technologies; Drupa does that, but not to the same extent as Printing United.

“We meet trade binders here that are now doing wide-format and display work, when 10 years ago they were only binding books. There’s simply the interest here: they can go look at a new wide-format cutter, then go see a binding line. The format is much more sustainable.”

“The show has increased in strength pretty much every year,” says Bowers, clearly proud to be back on the show floor.

“What this show proves to printers is that we’re a very vibrant, alive community. When we first launched, it had been years since anyone had seen a show of this size in the US. They had all become moribund, kind of hackneyed, and even the stronger shows weren’t seeing much growth.

“When you see a show shrink year after year, you get the impression you’re in a dying business. But here, now, printers don’t think that anymore. They absolutely do not think that; this show is the manifestation of how vibrant, alive, and critical we are as an industry.”

Outside of the halls, there were even more grounds for optimism, and – to borrow the German – a little schadenfreude. For, on Wednesday, as the sun set on the strip, a huge digital billboard, stretched across three buildings, blinked out into a black-and-white error message: somewhere, miles away, its host computer had crashed.

Hours later, error still unresolved, it was hard not to think of all those printers just a short walk away: maybe the city of lights could learn a little from its guests – print wouldn’t let you down like that.

READER REACTION

What did you think of the show?

Greg Gorman, graphics manager, Sign Logic

“I first came down here from Hudson five or six years ago; it has definitely changed, so I’m trying to find my way around. We’re getting everything we came here for, there’s plenty of information out there and equipment to see. There’s nowhere else we could actually go and see all the options at our disposal, and actually help us decide what’s best. We’re right between a couple of options – within a week we’ll have a decision.”

Peter Menchetti, owner, Sticker Guy!

“I’ve been running a print company for more than 30 years, and I’ve never been to a trade show, not even one for print. It’s been a very interesting show, though I’m not sure if I’d call it exciting – I guess it’s been useful. We’ve been looking around for printing equipment, just getting ready for when our machines finally fail. I’d probably not come back next year. In a few years, if we need to buy some new kit, that would be fine.”

Fatima Barajas Co-owner, Print Depot

“The show’s gone well, it’s a good time. I mean, there are a lot of things we’ve seen on stands that are the same: different vendor, different brands, but more or less the same equipment. There are definitely a lot of cutters – we’ve never been here before, but we might come again if we decide to buy a flatbed cutter. I love seeing all the new inventions that the manufacturers have come up with to make life easier.”