Why attend trade shows?

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Welcome To Cora’s Corner, where every month I am going to help you with

your artwork issues. This month I would like to discuss why trade shows are necessary to attend when you are considering artwork issues and requirements.

DigitisingMart exhibits the Prinwear and Promotion at NEC, Birmingham every year. It’s the largest printing and digitising industry trade show event in the UK. All printing disciplines are represented there. It’s a great show to get a glimpse of the future of the printing industries. It’s also a great show to see what you can do to expand your business or better utilize what you have already. How printing is done is rapidly changing. That means how artwork is created and processed is rapidly changing too. What you can offer your customer depends on how up to date you stay with what is happening in the printing/decorating industry. There are new software, tools, materials and equipment to run your business and produce products for you customers.

Education is Key.

Trade shows are good place to gain the education needed to run your business. Besides seeing vendors and their latest offerings, Trade shows offer educational opportunities. Most trade shows offer classes/seminars on best business practices to ‘how-to’ run equipment, create artwork or market yourself etc. Some of the vendors offer educational opportunities outside of the trade show environment. Ask them.

Trends

Trade shows are a great place to learn what trends are coming to fashion, sports, home goods, automotive and many more. You also find out what your competitors are doing and how they are doing it.

Networking

Trade shows are the best place to network with vendors, educators, customers and other businesses related to yours. You may have a customer who wants something done with the artwork using several different processes. You can find partners to work with during the trade show or by recommendation from someone you met at the show.

The new printing methods are requiring a different method of preparing artwork. For example, Direct to Garment printers do not require artwork to be separated into different color separations like for screen printing presses. Direct to screen printers do not require artwork color separations to be outputted to film first. It’s best to know what processes you will use to produce your customers products. Then how the artwork file needs to be prepared for the chosen method. This should happen before artwork is created to avoid mishaps or wasting time. Having the education before dealing with your customer’s request helps you steer the customer in the right direct to get the most out of their purchase from you.

Find a trade show in your area and/or go to some of the big trade shows.