The Perfect Wave - FESPA reportback

Our correspondent, Tom Staiger represented Wide Format Online at FESPA. He filed this report.

With more than 21000 visitors from over 130 countries, the 2010 FESPA fair in Munich/Germany is Europe’s most important exhibition for the screen and digital printing industry

Held only one month after IPEX in Birmingham, the show at the Munich fairground used five halls. The fair attracted this year more than 700 exhibitors, about the same as FESPA 2007 in Berlin. Three halls showed digital printing machinery, ink, substrates and software. One hall showed screen printing, pad printing and industrial decoration. FESPA Fabric was in yet another hall.

FESPA 2010 fuelled many expectations in the aftermath of the GFC. According to the fair organizers “all major vendors hailed the show an out-and-out success in terms of sales generation and relationship building, seeing it as clear indication of the sector’s return to strength after the challenges of the global recession.”

Familiar to Australian visitors were the visuals of the fair: surfboards, waves and fair staff dressed as lifesavers. 

Fair staff dressed as lifesavers.

Hottest topics at the show included: UV technology, environmentally friendly inks, better printing quality and wider gamut, increased productivity, soft signage, textile printing, reduced costs of ownership, extending the variety of applications using digital printing and vehicle wrapping.

The new Rhotex 320

The Rho 1000

Agfa's :Anapurna 2500 LED

Being one of the biggest players in the market, HP was present with a huge stand, fully decorated with digital prints.

HP Scitex LX800

The new Truepress Jet 1600UV-F

Océ Arizona 550 XT (Partially hidden)

The new Gerber CAT UV

As expected and previously announced, the exhibitors showed a wide range of innovative products and technology. All major contenders in the market were present. Hottest topics at the show included: UV technology, environmentally friendly inks, better printing quality and wider gamut, increased productivity, soft signage, textile printing, reduced costs of ownership, extending the variety of applications using digital printing and vehicle wrapping.

Riding the wave of innovation, Durst presented their new Rhotex 320, offering 320 cm wide printing on Polyester fabrics using water-based dye inks that are environmentally friendly, recyclable and disposable. Capable of 24/7 unattended production, the 6-colour Rhotex 320 prints up to 70 sqm per hour in 600 dpi resolution and can be used with any calender to fix the image onto the fabric.

Also new from Durst is the Rho 1000, the new flagship model offering high speed and fully automated printing with the highest print quality, doubling the speed of the Rho 800 HS. The machine prints on sheets, heavy boards and roll media up to 250 cm width. Long cleaning and maintenance intervals maximise productivity and are essential if integrated into existing manufacturing processes.

Claiming to be the world’s most versatile UV flatbed printer, Durst introduced the Rho 750 printing with VOC free UV inks on a broad range of board and roll media with  a max. 205 cm width. Its modular inkjets can be upgraded in the field when a higher productivity is required (up to 180 sqm/h) while maintaining its high image quality.

Agfa showed their new hybrid :Anapurna 2500 LED using LED technology to improve power consumption as well as broadening the use of substrates and allowing more applications.

Being one of the biggest players in the market, HP was present with a huge stand, fully decorated with digital prints.

Presenting their new range of latex ink printers the HP Scitex LX800 and the LX600 Hewlett Packard which they call the “new standard” replacing solvent ink printing.

Optimised in speed, quality and ink consumption the HP Scitex TJ8600 was spitting out endless prints throughout the fair.

Demonstrating the new Truepress Jet 1600UV-F, Dainippon Screen showed their UV-printer using LED technology. Their Jet2500UV presented at the DRUPA 2008 was also on display.

Canon/Océ exhibited their latest imageprograf ipf8300 using the 12-colour pigment inks as well the largest and fastest Océ Arizona flatbed model ever the 550 XT.

In cooperation with their software and substrate partners Epson showed “Inspired Creativity” applications for display productions and interior design, using materials like wallpaper, fabric, canvas as well as biodegradable substrates from Biomedia.

Fujifilm launched its new Pro-File colour control system, the high output Inca Onset S20 and for excellent print quality, the Acuity Advance HS X2. To standardise colour quality on screen printing and inkjet production they have combined their line of UV printers with the Pro-File colour control system and the Euromedia substrates. This might be an interesting solution for screen printers who want to achieve a smooth combination of screen and digital printing as well as maintaining quality.

3M introduced several new films for vehicle wrapping and fleet graphics. The 3M Performance Guarantee is extended now also for printing with HP Designjet L25500 printer series, using HP latex inks on 3M digital media.

Gerber Scientific demonstrated their wide range of sign making products, introducing the new Gerber CAT UV, using “Cold Fire Cure” for printing on a wide array on substrates, even on heat sensitive and recycled materials, with improved ink adhesion, scratch resistance and print accuracy. Also on display were the Gerber Edge FX and the M Turbo-Router.

Lots of news at the Mimaki booth including two direct to textile printers: the Tx400-1800D and the JV5-320DS. And for special applications, the new flatbed printer UJF-708 that prints on substrates with a maximum height of 150 mm.

Inkjet media supplier Neschen presented their current and new digital print media including "Multitex" - a polyester textile that can be printed both with the DyeSub method or with pigmented water-based, UV-curing or latex ink. Another focus is their Erfurt wallpaper CA, supporting the trend of digitally printed wallpaper. “The main approach of our appearance at this year's FESPA is best described with the words ‘Hands-on applications for trying out’,” says Frank Seemann, marketing and communications director of Neschen AG in Bückeburg. "That is why complete printing processes, which range from selecting the print medium via printing itself to finishing, are in the focus. We set a high value on practically orientated applications."

Roland DG presented their Print&Cut VersacammVS-640, available with 4, 6 or 8 inks, including metallic silver and white.

One of the main attractions on the WP Digital booth was the impressive Virtu RR50 capable of printing on 5m wide mesh, fabric and PVC with max. resolution of 1200 dpi.

Esko Artwork presented the i-cut Suite, an expanded collection of pre-production software. It is part of the EskoArtwork Suite 10 that handles workflow in the packaging and commercial printing.

Sepiax presented their water based resin inks that promise to combine the advantage of the harmlessness of water-based inks with the advantage of the reliability of solvent or UV-cured inks. They can be used for uncoated substrates as well as for textile media, no matter if indoor or outdoor.

Barbieri Electronic presented their new LFP-spectral photometer with variable aperture including polarisation filter to measure even reflective surfaces.

FESPA Fabric: As market research predicts an increase in textile promotional media printing by more that 50 % year on year between now and 2014 the FESPA Fair opened one whole hall to this growing market, becoming Europe’s largest garment printing event. As many manufacturers presented new products for textile printing it seems that they share this vision.

Roland DG had announced just one day before the start of the FESPA their new dye sublimation solution for its VersaArt series of four-colour CMYK wide-format inkjet printers.

Durst has invested heavily with their Rhotex 320 heavily into this market.

Mutoh presented the new Viper TX 100 printing direct-to-textile or as transfer dye-sublimation. With its 260 cm width and 76 sqm/h output it is targeting the soft signage, furnishings, garments and apparel markets.

The d.gen Teleios Grande and the Teleios GT including the fixation units were on display.

J. Zimmer from Austria, the manufacturers of the ChromoJet carpet printers showed their Colaris: printing on a huge variety of textile media with up to 8 waterbased colours on max. 320 cm width.

Besides the exhibition, visitors to FESPA were invited to attend numerous workshops, presentations and conferences touching on all topics relevant to the digital and screen printing business.

My personal impression from FESPA 2010 in Munich:
The manufacturers hope that we have overcome the worst stages of the GFC. Many of them have shown a huge variety of innovative products with increased quality, productivity and at the same time reduced costs and environmentally friendly effects. They also presented an expanded array of applications for their products.
Asian manufacturers, mainly from China, were there and we cannot discount the impact of these manufacturers in our industry.
The printing companies that have suffered from the recession are still very cautious. The more successful ones were looking for new investments to replace existing and ageing machines or enlarging their capacity. According to the exhibitors the visitors main focus was to products that offered them flexibility with ‘green’ attributes to open new markets.
In general the FESPA 2010 in Munich was more colourful then ever and has proven what is has promised: Innovation. Maybe not in one big wave, but for sure in a couple of major ones.

A very personal collection of ideas and products, picked up at the FESPA 2010 will be available at a later stage.