Pulling off an event like the PRINTING United Expo takes a full year. You’d assume the planning must be persistent and that the pressure leading up to it is relentless…and why wouldn’t it be? The 2023 edition had over 800 exhibitors and roughly 30,000 registrants, making it right around a top 30 tradeshow in North America.
Those are absurd statistics.
Production print is a space that requires creative thinking and doing. It’s a playground for the imagination, what with broad color palettes and a growing number of embellishments at your disposal, to name just a couple of items. Not so coincidentally, Mark Subers knows a thing or two about creative thinking and doing—and his active, right-dominant mind is very focused on bringing more dealers into the fold for PRINTING United 2024.
Mark is President – Events and Exhibitions of the PRINTING United Alliance and, not surprisingly, he speaks like a leader. The ideas come fast and furious and are oftentimes of the heady variety, and he has a quality answer to many a question. During our Interview Insights (which happened right before the organization’s successful 12th Inkjet Summit), Mark and I discussed the concepts of convergence and diversification in terms of PRINTING United’s evolution. The show aims to offer all arenas of production print under one roof because, as Mark so eloquently put it, “Everyone will be selling everything in 15-20 years.”
By “everyone,” Mark is including dealers. The channel. PRINTING United attendees are mostly from manufacturers, vendors, print service providers (PSPs), and end-user customers. They come in droves to witness technology advancements in commercial print, wide format, labels and packaging, textile and apparel, production print software, mailing systems, and way more.
And for dealers, there is no better time than the present to make a bigger push into production print.