The organising team does not traditionally reach this achievement until around six months before the show takes place, but such was the success of the 2022 show and the desire by companies to secure their space on the floorplan that the exhibitor list already features a number of leading brands.

Among those to have booked their stand already for The Print Show 2023 are ADAPT Amari Digital Printing Technologies, ASL Group, Venture Banners, and VB Media, while new additions in recent weeks include Vivid Laminating Technologies, Premier Paper Group, Renz UK, Tradeprint, and Flex4.

What these companies have in common is that they all exhibited at The Print Show 2022 and will be returning following their experiences this year. Each company will have a significant presence at the show next year and by booking on early, it meant they were able to secure their preferred space on the floorplan.

“Returning to the calendar for the first time since 2019 was always going to be a big challenge for us, but from speaking to our exhibitors both during and after the show this year, it’s clear our return was a huge success,” event director Chris Davies said.

“While footfall may have been understandably a little lighter than in previous years, companies at the show reported a significant number of quality leads and sales, with this having continued in the weeks following the event.

“This success is highlighted by the number of major exhibitors that have signed up to return next year, with more exciting announcements over returning exhibitors and new companies in the coming weeks and months.”

Great success

Lewis Evans, product and sales manager for Vivid Laminating Technologies, said this was very much the case for the company, revealing it was able to close a number of major deals as a result of The Print Show.”

“The Print Show 2022 exhibition was a great success for Vivid and gave us the opportunity to highlight our wide range of print finishing systems, products, and services,” Evans said.

“The quality of visitors that attended The Print Show 2022 was really good with business owners and decision-makers visiting our stand. We came away from the show with several closed deals and a large number of leads to follow up on.

“Vivid has been a long-term and dedicated supporter of The Print Show. We’ve enjoyed success at all the previous Print Show events, so we had no hesitation in signing up for another year and returning to The Print Show in 2023.”

Elsewhere, ASL Group actually signed up to return in 2023 before this year’s event had finished. Will Doherty, commercial and industrial printing systems director, said The Print Show 2022 was excellent for ASL, adding that it completed orders during the show and in the weeks following.

“This was the first time we had our own stand under the ASL brand having previously been part of the IPIA village, so we decided to try something a little different by having multiple manufacturers’ equipment on our stand and it worked a treat,” Doherty said.

“We secured a number of orders during and after the show and the response to our vendor neutral approach has been exceptional. The whole team has been kept really busy since then with follow ups, site visits, product demonstrations, and there is no sign of a slowdown this side of Christmas.

“Our stand was packed for three days solid and the quality of the attendees this year has been great. It’s fair to say our pipeline of business generated from the show is extremely healthy – and we will be back bigger and better next year.”

Also returning in 2023 is Premier Paper Group, another long-term supporter of the show. Marketing services manager Brad Goldsmith said The Print Show 2022 was “easily” one of the most successful for Premier.

“Normally we would experience a slower start on day one, but our stand was busy throughout with a steady flow of visitors up until the end of day three,” Goldsmith said.

“The Print Show exceeded our expectations, not just in terms of the volume of visitors that we received but also the quality of the conversations that we were having. The overall message that we wanted to convey with our stand this year was the choice and availability of products from Premier.

“To achieve this we created designated zones on the stand that would focus on key product areas including digital, display graphics, packaging, board, and lamination films. Because of this, we found that visitors were spending a lot of time on the Premier stand, moving from station to station, discussing their various requirements with our team of specialists.

“We recognise The Print Show as being the UK’s primary print exhibition, helping to celebrate and support the UK print industry. The Print Show is an excellent, professionally organised event that provides the perfect platform for networking and showcasing some of the latest technologies and innovations directly to customers.”

In addition, Solopress will be back next year after experiencing significant success at the 2022 show. Marketing manager Glen Eckett said the Solopress team spoke to hundreds of people over the three days, many of them existing Solopress customers but also many who were not but were interested in hearing how it could support them.

“The Print Show was a big success for Solopress, and allowed us to demonstrate exactly how much we have developed the business in the three years since the last show,” Eckett said.

“We were very proactive in contacting the leads we generated soon after the show, both to let them know who had won our competition to win £5,000 of print, but also to further discuss how we were able to support their businesses in the future. We have a welcomed a large number of new customers aboard and were also able to better understand the needs of our existing customers and unlock new opportunities for us to work together.

“Having had such a positive experience in 2022, we’d made the decision to return next year before we’d left the NEC!.”