Chicago, Illinois

Show organizers report that Print 97/Converflex-USA, the eight-day printing and converting show held at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois, from September 3-10, had the largest attendance, covered the greatest exhibit area and boasted the most companies to ever exhibit in a digital printing, publishing and converting trade show in the Western Hemisphere.

The international event marked the first appearance of Print since its last show in 1991, and the first appearance of Converflex in the United States. Attendance totaled 96,107 people from 123 countries. More than 1,100 exhibitors demonstrated products and services and the show covered 900,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space.

Josef Niehueser, director of marketing services with Heidelberg USA, said, "Based on our feedback prior to Print, we already had a positive feeling. At the show our customers gave us an overwhelming vote of confidence."

Heidelberg staged the largest single company exhibit in U.S. trade show history with a booth of nearly 90,000 net sq. ft. In this booth, Heidelberg more than doubled its sales record for an American-based trade exposition, pocketing nearly $400 million in equipment sales. The total included close to 700 printing units that were sold from the show floor and more than $22 million in sales achieved by the company's newly created Heidelberg Prepress unit.

"But size wasn't the reason for our success," noted Hans Peetz-Larsen, the president of Heidelberg USA. "In all of our Print 97 presentations and demonstrations, we strove to bring our customers into the story."

Added Heidelberg CEO Hartmut Mehdorn, "Print 97 was the first major international trade show in which all of Heidelberg's new business units participated fully. That's why these sales results are particularly gratifying."

Similarly, MAN Roland had an extremely successful show with sales totaling more than $73 million. Helgi Schmidt-Liermann, CEO of MAN Roland USA and Canada, said, "Particularly noteworthy is the fact that sales were across almost all product lines. Approximately two-thirds of the sales were for sheetfed presses and one-third for commercial web offset presses. Additionally, we had our first sale of a high-performance Brehmer saddlebinder, a product which only was added to the MAN Roland portfolio prior to the opening of the exposition. Other products, such as Sugano diecutters and folder-gluers, Baumann paper handling systems, and Wohlenberg cutters all benefitted from show exposure."

The next combined Print/Converflex-USA show will take place in 2001. The second U.S. edition of Converflex will take place in conjunction with GRAPH EXPO 99 in Chicago.