Heading South: Graph Expo Shifts to Orlando

For nearly 20 years I’ve headed to Chicago every September or October for Graph Expo, wondering, like many others, why it’s always in the Windy City. Chicago has come a long way in the past two decades and is a pretty good town for the nation’s largest show for the printing trades. But lift the covers on this annual extravaganza and you find many vendors less than enthusiastic about costs of putting on a show in Chicago and question the over-the-top rates for hotels and restaurants plus the often rapacious practices of McCormick Place unions.

But that’s about to change, at last for 2016. Show promoter, Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC), is moving the 2016 version of Graph Expo to the Orange County Convention Center in sunny Orlando, Florida. Slotted for September 25–28 (yes, that is the middle of hurricane season), the move south is—so far—a one-year event. The 2017 iteration will be back in Chicago in the guise of PRINT 17, the jumbo version of Graph Expo that follows one year after drupa in Dusseldorf, Germany. Dates for PRINT were doubtless locked down a few years back, but one wonders whether the shift to central Florida might be a trial for future Graph Expos.

"Costs for exhibitors and attendees alike are high in Chicago and continue to be an issue," says GASC President Ralph Nappi. “It's a good idea to consider other alternatives."

Vendors and non-local attendees will likely appreciate the cost differences. For example, only five of the 25 show hotels for the upcoming Graph Expo in Chicago have rates below $200/night. In Orlando next year, 20 of the 25 show hotels will cost less than $200. And vendors probably won’t miss being hit with surprise on-site labor charges.

There’s another dimension, too. “We see Orlando as an ideal destination to maintain and expand our current U.S. audience, and also build our international contingent of attendees, particularly from Latin America,” continues Nappi.

There is certainly growing strength and demand in the Caribbean and Latin American markets and Orlando is an easier destination than Chicago for printers in those nations. Bringing those folks to Orlando will require substantial outreach by GASC, but if successful, such an audience would be a major boost to Graph Expo fortunes.

Beyond 2017, Nappi says anything is possible. "I can anticipate a world where may it be on a rotation basis," he speculates.