Most exhibitors reported that they were encouraged by the attendance. We have not seen any official attendance numbers but it certainly seemed to be a busy show this year. That will be good news for the industry and may be a reason for optimism, particularly in the U.S.
It remains to be seen whether it indicates the same for the Canadian textile screen printing industry in 2012. However, as our pre-show survey predicted, very few Canadians attended the show. The lack of Canadian attendance was disappointing particularly because Long Beach is still the biggest and best purely textile screen printing show in North America. Most respondents to our survey told us that given the current economic state of the Canadian industry, the expense of attending was not in the budget this year.
If you had attended with a specific purpose in mind, such as looking for a particular piece of equipment or a consumable, you would almost certainly have found it. Most established manufacturers were exhibiting, even if some of them had downsized their booths from previous years. If you had gone to browse the show looking for something new to blow you away, you would probably have been disappointed. But even in the absence of ‘wow!’, attendance at least every couple of years helps to keep you in touch with developments in the industry and with key manufacturers and supliers.
Even though it had absolutely nothing to do with screen printing, there was a bit of ‘wow!’ for some when they found that Carmen Electra was in attendance on Saturday at one of the booths for an hour. Since she probably did not come cheaply, we hope that she sold enough digital printers for her hosts to justify her appearance money. An interesting bit of trivia we heard was that another exhibitor also inquired about hiring a has-been televison star to attend for three hours but they canned the idea when the asking fee turned out to be $50,000.00.
And while on the topic of trivia, how about this statistic for putting the size of the Canadian textile screen printing industry into perspective? A U.S. ink company representative mentioned that his top 100 customers in Southern California and Baja alone, have 700 automatic presses collectively.
But back to the show… Wilflex was showing a 16-colour Disney print done with their new Ecolution PVC-free ink. It looked and felt like a plastisol print and the ink apparently prints just like plastisol. It is not yet widely available as it is still undergoing some final tweeking in field tests but already it seems to be vastly better than any other PVC-free ink in the market. The demand for PVC-free ink is being driven by large customers like Adidas, Nike and Disney. Adidas, for example, issued their ‘Hazardous Substances Policy, A-01′ in September last year in which they specifically exclude PVC from their clothing line. That is all very well, but the bad news is that PVC-free ink is apparently going to be about twice the price of regular plastisol.
Also confirmed at this show is the shift away from conventional plastisol as we have known it for years, to Phthalate-free ink. Phthalates are what make vinyls pliable not only in screen printing ink but also in items like the tubes and intravenous equipment used in hospitals, which makes us wonder why it is okay in a hospital but not on a t-shirt. The major international ink manufacturers have already switched or are in the process of switching. Customer pressure and legislation in the U.S. and Europe has prompted the change. There is no legislated requirement (or serious customer pressure) for Phthalate-free ink in Canada yet but it cannot be too far off because the Canadian government has Phthalates in its sights already with regard to children’s toys.
If you have any specific questions about the show that we have not covered, please just ask and we will do our best to address them. As usual, we are at info@screenflex.ca or toll-free at 1 800 661 7766.
