With pre-registrations up nearly 20%, GASC president Ralph Nappi expressed confidence this October's Graph Expo will be as large, if not larger, than previous years despite the flat commercial printing environment, the economy and the fact this is a Drupa year.

"Our space is going to be about the same as last year so no real changes," Nappi told PrintWeek. "This past Drupa was probably the poorest attended by North American printers in our lifetime for obvious reasons — the big one is that there is very little equipment purchasing in the US at this time."

"The US marketplace is a lot like Europe in that there is still a lot of capacity in the marketplace and a lot of consolidation. Consequently with all that capacity in the marketplace and all that used equipment available, North American printers are not generally in a very active buying mode."

However, Nappi does think US printers will be more likely to pull the trigger in Chicago, assuming they’re in a buying mood: "The reason being this is their home base and they can bring more people and consummate the deal at Graph Expo - so you’ll definitely see a few deals being made."

GASC currently projects between 20,000 to 22,000 people will attend this year’s show from 7-10 October at the McCormick Place South convention hall and Nappi said some credit goes to the organizers’ decision to widen the scope of the show.

"We’re up to 48 co-located events and that includes user groups, Dscoop or an awards ceremony," Nappi added.  "We also continue to add segments, the most recent ones being photo-imaging and transactional packaging, as a way to appeal to a broader segment, and The American Marketing association is also holding an event with us."

Like most recent print-themed shows, Nappi said digital will likely capture the lion’s share of interest. "At this year’s show, my largest exhibitors are going to be the digital guys — HP, Xerox, EFI," he added. "Digital players are clearly doing better and that’s just world we live in. In the US, digital equipment is outselling litho by roughly a two to one margin."