Sign & Digital v Printwear & Promotion - An Observation

I was recently very kindly invited to speak as part of the SDUK Explains Lounge at the Sign & Digital UK show in Birmingham by Jack Gocher of Eye on Display Magazine.

My chat was about Social Media for Printing companies as I don’t think as a trade we’re very good at promoting ourselves and social media is the perfect way to improve that. It seemed to go down quite well and one thing I mentioned during the talk, which the more I think about it is probably linked with my main point, was the apparent difference in energy and attitude between the SDUK show and the Printwear and Promotion Live! show which was running in the hall next door.

This is just a personal opinion, and maybe attendance and sales figures are more important and may tell a different story but I found the printing show to be a bit flat and, dare I say it, dull. The Printwear and Promotion show, on the other hand, was absolutely bouncing. There were bright, vibrant stands with stunning visuals and teams were dressed in bright coloured clothes. There was loud music pumping out of one of the stands on a loop but even that couldn’t dim the mood of those involved. The stands of the printing companies were great too but there just wasn’t the same energy.

Having been in printing for over 30 years and now also the joint owner of an embroidery business I think that both trades are fairly similar in process with one putting ink onto different substrates and the other putting stitches or prints onto garments so I can’t think why there appeared to be such a difference in the two shows other than the demographic of the people on the stands. 

It seemed that most of the stands in Printwear and Promotion were filled with an overall much younger group than those in Sign & Digital which was largely filled with guys more around my age. That maybe leads us to the bigger issue of how we attract more young people into the print business? 

There was a brilliant panel discussion in the SDUK Explains Lounge about attracting more women to the industry and that is maybe the first step to attracting a more diverse workforce but how do we get more young people involved?

I’m sure that far cleverer people than me are already looking into this and I know that FESPA are actively trying to sell the print trade to younger people as a career option but is there more that can be done? If I was an 18 year old visiting both shows then I know for a fact that I would be more attracted to the Print and Promotion side of things. The thing is, because of the apparent lack of youth at the forefront in the trade there could be a massive opportunity for anyone who does see their future in the print business.

In fairness I was only at the exhibitions for one day and maybe the other days were different but from the minute I arrived until I left at the end of the day the difference was obvious to see.

So print trade folks, what’s the answer? How do we get the young team involved?