Senior personnel from a raft of companies, including Southernprint, Pindar, Polestar, Cooper Clegg, Artisan, Vertis, Howard Hunt, Headley Brothers, Graphoprint and New Jarrold Printing, attended the event at Woodford's Witham factory.

The highly-specified 48pp web printed a 25,000 run of a 48pp section for Black Hair magazine, on 80gsm UPM Star. It ran at 42,500rph, a web speed of 880 metres per minute. A plate change to a different section took less than 10 minutes.

The C618 is the first commercial web in the UK to be fitted with Grafikontrol's latest colour and register controls, and its PF 2:5:5 folder has a moveable former, allowing the production of 16, 24, 32 and 48pp sections.

"We were flattered and honoured to host such a gathering and everyone was very complimentary about the press," said Woodford Litho managing director Simon Fox. "The only embarrassing thing was having to face Ian Cooper after he had beaten my predicted time for his marathon run by more than an hour!"

The installation is hugely significant for KBA, which is looking to re-establish its commercial web credentials in the UK.  UK managing director Christian Knapp said: "I'm very pleased it went very well. They did a complete makeready in 35 minutes with only 700 revolutions of waste, and that's very good for a double-circumference web.

"It's difficult to make projections about future orders, but we are definitely in the race now it's up to us to try and get some deals," Knapp added.