Expo Bound: Keeping an Eye Out for the Next Opportunity

PRINTING United Expo is set to take over Orlando, Florida, Oct. 22-24. Attendees are gearing up for three days of learning, networking, and inspiration.

As a lead-up to the Expo, we are sharing a series of interviews featuring attendees from a variety of backgrounds explaining why they are attending the Expo, what they hope to learn, and what excites them about the upcoming event.

Blaine Gabriel

Blaine Gabriel
Director
Ohio University Printing Services
Athens, Ohio

Why have you decided to attend PRINTING United Expo again this year?

They always have new technology that you can see. There's a couple things that we'd like to add to the shop, and I get to see all of them … at one place. I can talk to [vendors], I can get pricing structure … and we can actually see what we want to see. And you get to see things that you didn't even know were out there or that [have] been updated.

What types of equipment were you looking for at past Expos?

Three years ago when we went to Vegas, we were looking for an envelope printer, and we found one that we really liked — it was an iJet — so we bought it. Now, we can bleed off the envelopes, and we get outside work because we have the only one in the area that can bleed envelopes.

Blaine Gabriel (left) and Roger Williams stand with the new EZ-Jet Pro 24 direct-to-film printer at Ohio University Printing Services.

That same year, we were actually looking at doing in-house direct-to-film. So not last year, but the year before, we bought direct-to-film, and we went from making 100-200 shirts a week to 500-600 shirts a week now. It helped us because we can do everything in-house, and we don't have to wait on an outside entity to help us. But also, two years ago, we looked at collators, and last year we bought a collator.

This past year [2024], we looked at a lot of different things. We were able to get a couple different substrates for our wide-format. We actually went looking at inkjet presses … and we're actually moving with DPS. In one year, we will move to inkjet, because we really enjoyed their inkjet. So we'll be toner-based for another year and then we'll be inkjet. We'll be the only one in this whole area with inkjet, so it should open some other doors for us.

What are you looking for at this year’s Expo?

This year, we're looking to put a little folder on the back of our Duplo DC-646, so as we cut/score, it can come straight off and fold right in-line. That is the main thing that we're going to look at, but we never know what's out there. We always look at sticker machines. I don't know that we'll do it this year, [but] we're looking at flatbed cutters.

The other thing I will look at this year is a two-headed embroidery machine, because we got a four-head. We probably embroider … close to 200-300 shirts a week plus hats. Well, if I put in a two-head, that’s not real big, [but] I can do hats while [someone else is] doing shirts, because [with] the four-head, you have to run all the same thing. So I could run hats over on one side; because a lot of people order 12-48 hats at a time, I could almost be doing two orders at one time.

Is there anything you didn’t expect about PRINTING United Expo?

I like some of the new innovative stuff that they have. Three years ago, when we looked at the direct-to-film machine, there were probably eight of them. Two years ago, there was probably 15, 16. Last year, there were over 100. That kind of caught me off guard last year; I didn't realize that we'd go from 15 to 100-and-some.

What should other in-plant managers know about attending PRINTING United Expo?

Expo will enlighten you when you go because there's just about everything that's on the market there that you get to see. You get to see your direct-to-film machines, you get to see toner machines, I assume there will be inkjets there again this year, and that's the way of the future. You've got your flatbed printers, you got your flatbed cutters. It doesn’t matter if you’re a big shop or a little shop — they've got something there for you to go and see. The good thing about it is you get to see everything that's on the market pretty much in one location.

Watch for more pre-show coverage in the weeks to come. And register for the Expo today at this link.