Digital Printing Options Abound

By Don Jergler, Staff writer

LONG BEACH — Some 550 years after first putting to use his revolutionary invention, Johannes Gutenberg would roll over in his grave if he were to see the state of today's printing industry.
Perhaps he would be impressed with all the new technology, but the father of movable type would get the ultimate slap in the face at the PrintFest at the Long Beach Convention Center next Thursday through Saturday.

The show is aimed at helping those in the printing industry understand that computer technology has replaced a large segment of traditional type printing, and that change has allowed even Gutenberg's name to fade a bit.

The first annual PrintFest, born from the ashes of the Gutenberg Festival that ran continuously from 1973 through its demise following lackluster attendance during the 2005 convention, is expected to feature more than 150 vendors and draw at least 3,000 attendees.

That's down from a peak of 900 vendors and a crowd of 10,000 in 1999 after the show was sold by its founders to Graphic Arts Show Company Inc. Interest in the show dwindled over time thanks to massive printing-industry shrinkage in the past few years.

Losses since 2000 are estimated to add up to $30 billion, said industry expert Dr. Joe Webb, who noted that at its peak printing was considered a $115 billion-per-year industry.

"This year it will be an $85 billion industry," Webb said. "Much of it is due to the Internet and the reallocation of advertising and communications dollars by all kinds of businesses, whether small, medium or large. More and more people are using the Internet."

Webb, who will be the keynote speaker at the conference, added, "There are some printers who really have not gotten a good grasp of what has happened."

That's why PrintFest manager Chris Jacobson, son of Gutenberg Festival founder David Jacobson, started another show after Graphic Arts chose not to produce the show this year.

The new show Jacobson sold rights to the Gutenberg name when he sold the show in 1999 is aimed at helping printers transition toward modern digital printing technology. That means those who attend the show will see a bit less machinery a bit more software.

Instead of focusing on selling equipment, the show will focus on niche opportunities, such as digital printing through variable data implementation. Variable data printing allows each sheet to come off the press in varied form, instead of an individual plate that has to be created in traditional offset printing.

Other focuses will include wide format, mailing and fulfillment (shipping, stocking warehousing and inventory), label printing and package printing.

Jacobson's goal for now is to keep the show the same size as the last year of Gutenberg.

"We're going to arrest that hemorrhage," he said. "Digital printing is really going to be the salvation of the industry because it is going to bring in more opportunities."

Alas poor Gutenberg. However, his legacy isn't likely to bleed away any time soon.

"Printing as a viable, highly effective communications media will always be around in some form, but the demand for different types of printed product is shifting," Jacobson said.

Jacobson stayed with the Gutenberg show for a few years after his family sold it, and for the past three years he has been organizing other trade shows, including the Digital Lifestyle Expo in Long Beach in August 2004.

After his father founded the show at the Los Angeles Convention Center, it was moved to Anaheim, and finally to the Long Beach Convention Center in 1980. The Gutenberg Festival stayed in Long Beach until 2005, when Graphic Arts Show Co. took the show on the road to the Los Angeles Convention Center.

There, the concept, and Gutenberg's association with a printing show, met an end.

For more information, visit www.printfest.com.

Don Jergler can be reached at don.jergler@presstelegram.com or (562) 499-1281.