At Graph Expo, Signs of a Newspaper Industry Revival

Graph Expo is the United States’ biggest commercial print equipment show, but this year it’s also a barometer of the improving health of the newspaper industry.

Equipment and software suppliers on the floor of Graph Expo, which runs through Wednesday at McCormick Place in Chicago, say more newspaper operations executives than ever are wandering the show floor, expressing interest in the latest offerings.

“They’re not whipping out their checkbooks, but they are asking questions,” said Barry Evans at the Goss International booth.

This year, Graph Expo dedicated a portion of the show floor to newspaper industry vendors, and scheduled special     seminars for newspaper issues. With the demise of  Nexpo, the equipment show run for decades by the Newspaper Association of America, Graph Expo has positioned itself as the show for newspapers.

Also increasing newspaper operations traffic at the show was the fact that several  newspaper users groups and the International Newspaper Group scheduled  their meetings to coincide with Graph Expo.

But vendors said aside from the promotional efforts by Graph Expo, a big impetus for the traffic appears to be genuine interest in upgrading equipment.

“Newspapers want to do more with their printing capability, they want to do more commercial work, and what better place is there to find solutions than Graph Expo?” said Werner Naegeli, president and CEO of Muller Martini U.S..

Naegeli said Muller Martini salespeople have had “great discussions with newspaper people” in the opening days of the show.

“They are talking about and trying new things – whereas they were hiding under the table just a few months ago,” Naegeli said.