Scheduled for Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 October 2014, the sixth London Calling event will take place at East Wintergarden, Canary Wharf. Duplo says: ‘Come to be inspired.’
The people at Duplo have been trying to outdo themselves every year in choosing a venue for their next London Calling event, and in the quest to inspire printers with applications and innovations that make them money, this year they are taking it to the very centre of the capital’s financial beating heart at Canary Wharf’s East Wintergarden.
When Duplo asked the members of its customer forum, organised to steer ideas for the 2014 event, whether a great venue was important, the answer was resoundingly yes. After a modest start at a Hilton Hotel in Docklands, London Calling – now running for the sixth time – has visited the Tate Modern, the BFI IMAX at Waterloo (site of Britain’s biggest screen), the O2, and Somerset House in 2013, when more than 300 people from 200 companies attended.
East Wintergarden will maintain this standard of spectacular venues, which visitors to London Calling have come to expect almost as much as the innovation and inspiration that Duplo intends to serve up within. It is Canary Wharf’s premier event venue, nestled among the iconic towers, with a stylish glass-covered atrium that overlooks the water promenade, and has already hosted television shows, concerts, banquets and sporting events.
Print will be coming to town on 15 and 16 October 2014 however. This is not only the sixth London Calling event, but also Duplo’s 30th anniversary year – something to be marked with the best London Calling yet.
Themed ‘Without Limits’, the event will showcase new and trusted technology, organised into some familiar and some more innovative live workflows, producing a range of applications that will be relevant both to the here and now of a print business owner’s every day operations, as well as to the potential future of print businesses. Key applications that will be produced at London Calling include photobooks, personalisation, mailing, and packaging.
‘The first London Calling showed only finishing, but we have extended the line as far as workflow is concerned, and we’ve now got MIS and web to print, all the way through to mailing,’ said Duplo UK managing director Peter Jolly. ‘Truly, we will show everything from typing in the order on a website, all the way through to putting it in the post.
‘We wanted to make it more relevant to more people, and so there will be workflows that are much used in today’s market, things like business cards where people will say: yes, we do that today; show us how we can be more efficient; but also more inspirational workflows, where people will say: wow, you are producing that here on this kit? We really are hoping to plant some seeds at the show.’
In addition to moving the event around to different venues, Duplo is also keen to keep it fresh by bringing new partners on board, and this year is no exception. Those confirmed as participating at the time of writing are: Antalis (new partner), Optimus (new partner), Vpress, Taopix (new partner), Esko, Balreed, LumeJet (new partner), Renz, Vivid Laminating Technologies, and Neopost (new partner).
LumeJet’s S200 photonic printer will make its first outing at the event
‘Every year, we want the latest innovation at London Calling, and this year that’s LumeJet,’ commented Mr Jolly. The Coventry-based ‘photonic’ printing technology developer, which has been steadily picking up commercial print customers for its first production system, the LumeJet S200, this year, will be focusing on high quality pitch book applications at London Calling. Photobooks will be printed by Balreed, taking feeds from Taopix software, and the finishing systems on display for this application will suit every budget.
A novel aspect of the planning for the live workflows is that the intention is to man them not just with demonstrators from the partner manufacturers but also with operators from Duplo’s customer base. ‘Our customers will be running certain kit, and holding discussions while work is being done, so that they can give a real life dialogue on these in a real production environment, rather than our demonstrators talking about the equipment running in an exhibition or a fine-tuned showroom environment,’ explained Mr Jolly.
Duplo will be showing eight new products at London Calling, including the UltraBind 6000 PUR binder that was previewed at Ipex, and is now commercially available. It will look to extend its leadership in the multifinisher market with the launch of multiple products, including the DC-616PRO and the Integrated Folding System (IFS) for the DC-646PRO that was launched at Ipex. There will be a new Duprinter, the DF-850, as well as the DM230Vi, a direct mail converter that reads barcodes and collates leaflets from appropriate bins accordingly, which is due to be shown as a technology demonstration at Post Expo, with the first UK showing at London Calling.
The Duplo UltraBind 6000 PUR binder
Finally, there will be iSaddle, a fully automatic stitching system that Duplo says is the first saddle stitcher offering intelligent automated precision combined with PC controlled technology. It brings the advantages of flatter publications from the old generation saddle stitchers, combined with the automation of modern bookletmakers including A4 landscape capability. There are three systems: iSaddle System; iSaddle Digital System; and iSaddle Duetto System. The Duetto system will be on show at London Calling.
Adding an extra dimension to London Calling will also be a small seminar programme facilitated by the BPIF, providing an excellent opportunity for visitors to gain new information, debate ideas and share best practice that will equip them to better deal with future challenges. Currently, there is information available regarding two seminars, although this is subject to change:
Future Focus
Neopost worked with the BPIF to commission the most contemporary research into the current and future challenges facing the UK printing industry. From the research, a number of common challenges for the sector became clear, outlined in the ‘Future Focus’ report. Neopost will share this insight with the industry at London Calling, and all participants at the seminars will receive a complimentary copy of Future Focus.
Instigating Change
Alison Green, Group HR manager at Howard Hunt Group, will be facilitating a discussion on successfully managing change within your business, from policies to employees, sharing the challenges, anecdotes and success stories from her own experience.
The countdown to London Calling is well underway, with just a month to go, and the company looks set to deliver a stand out event. For visitors, inspiration, education and technology await.
Peter Jolly commented: ‘We asked our customers what they wanted from this year’s event and the recurring theme was that they “want to be inspired”. London Calling is designed to draw visitors away from their busy working environments and offer real-life ways to make their businesses more efficient and gain inspiration from the applications being produced and displayed at the event. Differentiation in print applications can mean higher margins, so we like to think differently at the show and offer visitors an experience that’s of value, I urge anyone involved in print to come down and see what the show is all about.’
