NAA Steers Nexpo In Right Direction

By: This unsigned editorial appears in the June 24 print edition of E&P.

Nexpo, the Newspaper Association of America's (NAA) equipment show, offers the best annual opportunity to take the industry's temperature.

The noisy and sprawling gatherings of the mid-1980s, for instance, reflected the explosion of new computer front-end solutions and new-to-newspaper technology for printing and packaging that vendors were offering papers anxious to improve their operations. The focused and businesslike shows of the mid-1990s -- with the high-tech carnival barkers mostly gone and the Kansa girls only a ribald memory -- served a shaken-out industry that had shed dozens of sickly dailies and mostly settled on the technological directions it wanted to pursue in writing, designing, and printing its pages.

With its tomblike silence and deserted aisles, Nexpo 2001 was both a symbol of an industry stunned by the collapse of advertising -- and an eerie portent of the stillness to come after the attacks of Sept. 11.

NAA member officers and professional staff have made a full-court press to boost traffic in Orlando, Fla., this week, although, as one vendor, twitting the association's past tendency to puff attendance figures, told us: "We'll never see that 10,000 average [attendance] again. We'll probably never even see the 5,000 in real numbers." Still, if anecdotal evidence holds, many operations executives will be returning this year after missing Nexpo 2001.

More important, Nexpo remains relevant because the newspaper industry continues to invest in capital equipment no matter the economic climate. That's clear from the latest edition of NAA's scrupulous and reliable annual survey. As we report in this issue, the 196 responding dailies say they will spend nearly a half-billion dollars on equipment this year, about the same as actual spending in the more optimistically budgeted 2001. Although newspapers plan to nearly double last year's spending on newsprint handling and storage equipment, the figures portray a business that is completing the large-scale plant and press expansions begun in the 1990s and is now turning its attention to the front of the building by installing more computer software and hardware and investing in energy and security.

NAA is steering Nexpo in the right direction in content, timing, and venue. Attendees this year will notice a beefed-up workshop program, a harbinger of 2003 when the SuperConference technology symposium, which has been held in January, becomes part of Nexpo. At long last, too, NAA is ending the cycle of convening in withering Sun Belt cities during their most hellish season. Beginning in 2005, Nexpo will be held in March or April and stop more frequently in the Northeast. Nexpo also will overlap on a rotating basis with such conferences as America East, a common-sense step that accommodates vendors and encourages greater attendance.

For the next few days, Nexpo may be stopping in the shadow of Disney World, but it is likely to prove again that it is no Mickey Mouse operation.