This time last year things were after all not looking too rosy. Canon had joined the likes of HP, Kodak, Xerox and Heidelberg in deciding not to exhibit, and many were doubting whether, even with its duration reduced 25% from the original plan, Informa would succeed in actually making a show happen.

Yet succeed it has. And show organiser Informa is sure Ipex 2014’s success won’t be confined, come the end of its six days, on 29 March, to simply having existed.

Reacting admirably nimbly to its visitor research (centred on 100-plus interviews and a survey of 1,600 past visitors), Ipex repositioned itself to adopt a strong focus on educational content and market insight. The result is a show boasting around 130 seminar sessions and 230 speakers, making it arguably the UK’s largest ever print conference.

“The content and the programme makes us very different to any other event,” says Ipex 2014 event director Trevor Crawford. “Going forwards this is very much a new chapter in our history and we believe the event is reflecting what printers worldwide want Ipex to become.”

This beefed-up content consists of an Ipex Masterclass programme, dispensing practical advice on the day to day issues facing today’s print business, and a World Print Summit programme featuring expert speakers of the likes of Clive Humby, of Tesco Clubcard fame, print guru Frank Romano and the inimitable Benny Landa.

Adding to this wealth of interesting content is the co-located Cross Media Production show’s three theatres, featuring talks such as ‘Expanding Marketing Services to Deliver Cross-Channel Campaigns’ and ‘Managing Colour Expectations in Cross Media.’

The cross-media focus won’t by any means be confined solely to the Cross Media Production exhibitor halls and theatres, though. Rather print’s role in the wider communications mix will be the focus throughout.

“The good thing is you’ve still got the focus on print but that’s also against the broader cross-media context,” says chief executive of St Ives and Ipex president Patrick Martell. 

“The context is enormous change in the way that consumers are better informed and need to be marketed to in a very different way. As consumers we don’t think in channels. We see across all of the channels in terms of how we come to make decisions and get inspired and motivated.”

“If we look at our pre-registration data, over a third of visitors have already indicated they want to attend Cross Media Production, so we already have a high proportion of printers who want to understand cross-media better,” adds Crawford. 

Visible focus

This cross-media focus will no doubt be highly evident in the event’s case study-based Inspiration Avenue and the Future Innovations Zone’s exploration of the future of printed electronics and 3D print. It will also hopefully feature strongly in on-stand discussions.

With exhibitors typically bringing less kit (notable exceptions being the likes of largest exhibitor Konica Minolta with its B2 KM-1, bizhub Pro, bizhub Press 2250P and others, and Fujifilm with its Jet Press and Graphium line-up), the stage has been set for more discussions of what print, rather than printing machines, can do.

“The show is evolving from a show about how to print to a show about how to use print,” reports Martell. 

“When I used to go to printing shows many years ago it was all about scale and building enormous printing presses to demonstrate on and I don’t personally think that is as relevant now as it was in the past,” he adds. “It was relevant when the market was growing and improving your margins was about making machines more efficient. But as the world has changed, greater efficiency is no good if you can’t fill the machine up.”

Of course, some of the 60-plus show launches made will indeed be about boosting efficiency. But backing up Martell’s point about huge presses, Ralf Schlözer, director of Infotrends’ on-demand printing and publishing consulting service, reports that many of these efficiency-boosting launches will be in the form of software.

“There’s a lot of potential in software for cost cutting and automation,” says Schlözer. 

Pre-press opportunities

He adds that printers should treat the show as a chance to bone up on what’s out there software-wise, due to the large number of pre-press exhibitors in attendance. 

“The software companies are smaller businesses so are very interested in going to trade shows and showing what the software can do,” says Schlözer. “Software’s always difficult to explain so trade shows are a real opportunity for them to do that.”

Not that the focus is by any means mostly on software and pre-press. Despite also repositioning itself as a predominantly digital and cross-media event last January, and while heavy metal stalwarts like Heidelberg and KBA may be absent, the show is still designed to reflect the whole gamut of print processes.

 “The reason Ipex has always been so popular is because it’s a very neutral territory. All areas of printing are covered,” says Crawford, adding: “If you look at pre-registrations, digital printing is coming out at a very high level of interest, but then so is offset litho and so is packaging and finishing.”

The show should, then, provide a good overview of the industry for those attending as part of Saturday 29 March’s Youth Day. Here students from schools, colleges and universities will have the chance to hear power of print-themed seminars, go on a tour of Ipex and win a year’s mentoring with Martell himself.

Another notable success of the show will also hopefully prove to be, come show-close on 29 March, its mix of visitor types. 

“We hope to attract more brand owners. Cross Media Production is firmly targeting agencies, brands and clients, and we’re in London so we’re right on the doorstep of probably the largest community of brands and agencies in the world,” says Crawford. “300,000 people around London are in the creative and marketing and brand industry so we couldn’t be any closer to them.”

The London Excel Centre location of the show has also confirmed Ipex 2014 as a truly international event, adds Crawford. “Our pre-registration is 48% of visitors from the UK and 52% coming from 140 countries. I’m pretty certain 140 is higher than we were at the same point in the last cycle,” he said several weeks prior to the show.

“I think the NEC is great but there is a great attraction to coming and staying in London,” he added.

With an enticing content programme and international audience, this year’s Ipex looks set, then, to prove itself as anything but a disaster. For Ipex 2014, the show must, and looks very much set to, go on.