Duplo UK managing director Peter Jolly said: "We know from London Calling that the first show is always the hardest, which is what makes this so impressive. It took us four runs with London Calling to get to the numbers we have achieved this week with Northern Lights.

"That's testament to the work we've done with the brand through London Calling as well as to the relevance of our kit. We've had people travelling many hundreds of miles to see us and the feedback on my phone today has been full of praise for what we're doing."

Jolly said there was undoubtedly a pent up demand for a print show in the north of England and added that 50% of the show's visitors had come from the region, with the other half being a split of Scottish, Midlands, London and southern printers.

"We decided on the show before we knew what was happening with North Print and while we're not a trade show I do think there's an opportunity for us to develop Northern Lights over the coming years."

The show, which ran from 10-11 March, also played host to the inaugural Duplo Owners Club independent customer forum, a meeting of 14 Duplo customers chaired by Prime Group operations director Adrian Tolley.

Jolly said: "I've just come off a conference call with Adrian and there were some absolute gems that came out of the meeting that we can use to really evolve our business in line with the current market.

"There were some quick wins and some longer term projects that would suit a lot of our customers. There was also so much best practice that came out of it and we've now got private conversations taking place between print companies about how they can the most out of their Duplo kit."

Jolly added that there would "without doubt" be another Duplo Owners Club forum at London Calling and that there might also be an interim meeting over the summer. "We know the formula is correct now so we want to roll it out to as many people as can benefit," he said.