By Roberto Mercati

Meet José Antonio Larroy, owner of GraficaZ, a family-owned company specializing in printing self-adhesive and shrink labels in Zaragoza, Spain, and his daughter Jessica who with two assistant engineers from the Italian company Lombardi Ltd. in Brescia are carrying out the final inspection on the 8-color flexographic rotary Synchroline before shipment.

Once again leaving its marks in the record books, Labelexpo 2013 in Brussels has been the event for label printers and converters, packaging printers and everyone who wants to educate themselves about the industry. Sabine A Slaughter reports from Belgium.

Entering the exhibition halls, the first impression that ones' eyes register is not only the amount of mostly huge booth spaces but the sheer number of machinery. Presses – analog and digital – finishing and converting equipment side by side and in many cases displayed as full production lines – either inline or offline. While at most shows demonstrations are not only set to certain hours, one gets the impression that all halls are constantly on the move – and everything and anything is running at once. Well, that obviously is not true but like in a normal production shop, many machines are running at the same time while the noise is not as aloud as in a single shop due to the high halls where the talks from the overall 31,795 visitors, the close to 600 exhibitors and all the running machines are deviated. The atmosphere is optimistic to say the least. Each and everyone that came to the show reflect the positive upturn that the label market seems to enjoy. Needless to say that many suppliers chose this show for the presentation of new products and new solutions – over 150 market entrances could be seen.

Label printers all around the world are looking for cost-effective short run production of labels. One of the most compelling solutions is the Jetrion 4900 ML label press from EFI.

By Ann Hirst-Smith

The Global Release Liner Industry Conference and Exhibition, organized by AWA Conferences and Events, is annually the meeting point for participants in this specialist industry, at all levels of the value chain. Siliconized release liner's major market is in pressure-sensitive labeling, but it supports and protects materials in a surprisingly diverse range of applications, from building and construction to electronics, photovoltaics, medical disposables, and pressure-sensitive vehicle 'wraps'. The conference alternates between Europe and the USA, and this year was held in Amsterdam's Hotel Novotel Amsterdam City.