[dropcaps style=’2′]The success of Xeikon Café grows year on year and the fourth edition was no exception. A record number of 830 unique visitors attended the 4-day event, which had an international scope with attendees from 40 different countries – mainly Europe, Asia and Australia as American packaging and label printers are invited to the Xeikon Café North America that takes place 15-17 May in Itasca, Illinois. The organization also announced that next year’s Xeikon Café event has been confirmed and will run again in Belgium from 26 through 29 March 2019.[/dropcaps]
“The combination of a relaxed environment with demo’s and technology presentations from leading-edge suppliers is at the heart of the success of Xeikon Cafe,” comments Danny Mertens of Xeikon Café. “It continues to help visitors identify the best business benefits of a digital production approach and signpost how future developments can support profitable growth. It was clear visitors came with a focussed agenda, exploring topics that were very specific to their business, and discovering the many production possibilities and live applications. We are delighted to have been able to bring so many partners, technology and end-use applications together under one roof to ensure visitors could gather all information they need to make the right decisions for their businesses.”
Must attend event where visitors Learn, Connect and Discover This year’s Xeikon Café introduced the well-attended educational Academy programme with over 15 interactive workshops and technology-driven Tech Talks, covering useful insights in current and future hot industry topics and decoration techniques. Also the live production of over 40 applications and the opportunity to view technology from leading industry suppliers was well received by the visitors.
Prakask Patel of Javcorp who attended the event said, “Digital printing in India is quite different from Europe. It has only really been growing for the past three years so there is a lot to see and learn. I am here to look at everything and see what knowledge I can take back.”
Highlights of the Conference programme included an inspiring look at the future and how innovation is much like making moonshine with keynote speaker Andrew Vorster. Johan Van de Velde from AB-InBev talked about enhancing customer relations through digital printing, Niko Dhondt from Altrif Label outlined how digital print has driven successful label innovation and Patrick Poitevin from Mondelēz International detailed current and next-generation printing technologies. The question of how to balance dry toner and inkjet was addressed by Carsten Stahl Hansen from Limo Labels; Lisa Sohanpal from Nom Noms World Food shared her brand’s design journey and Giuseppe Prioriello talked about his unique web-to-print packaging solution, Packly.
