Agfa to host virtual event for offset printing industry
Agfa has announced Studio 4D48, a six-day virtual event featuring sessions to support printing companies worldwide through the current business challenges and help them plan for the future. The event will run from 18 June to 26 June, coinciding with the original drupa time frame.
The series of targeted educational webinars focus on market and technology trends as well as on the way printing companies can benefit from Agfa’s latest made-to-measure printing innovations for the offset printing industry. These include printing plates, hardware, and a range of workflow, color management, print standardization, and screening software. All of them underpin Agfa’s ECO³ approach, aimed at making print operations more economical, ecological, and extra convenient.
“4D48 would have been our booth number at drupa,” says Guy Desmet, head of Marketing for Agfa’s business division Offset Solutions. “Drupa and other tradeshows may have been postponed or even canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak, but our commitment to the printing industry stands strong. We want to inspire and engage in printing companies. In Studio 4D48, our experts will give them an update on our offering, and how it can move their businesses forward in a cost-effective way.”
In total, the event will play host to two webinars per day across the six days, consisting of a mix of expert talks, user cases, and Q&A sessions. Each webinar focuses on a specific market segment, including commercial heatset and sheetfed printing, offset packaging, and newspaper print production. Various kinds of automation and efficiency increases, as well as cost reduction, will be a common thread. All webinars will be streamed from Agfa’s headquarters in Belgium, in English. They will last between 30 and 45 minutes each.
To see the full list of scheduled Studio 4D48 sessions and to register, visit www.studio4d48.com. Links to the recordings will be made available at the conclusion of the event.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
