51th SIGN & DISPLAY SHOW 2009 in Tokyo, Japan.

A total of 66 people from the China-inkjet Printing Association and Chinasigns came to Tokyo, Japan for the 51st SIGN & DISPLAY SHOW 2009. The show is smaller-scaled than key shows in China, but the exhibitors are quite competitive and local visitors are very professional in the sign industry.
 
After a tiring but fulfilling day, I received so many product brochures that they, in total, weighed more than 40kgs; many companies' product brochures are very thick, ranging from 200 to 600 pages, but the information contained is perfect for readers. 

There were less than 200 companies in attendance for this show, but each one plays an important role in the sign world.

The show is innovative in terms of the technology, but most important is the originality in the application of sign products, which is inspiring and encouraging. This marks a difference from shows in China, which pay too much attention to scale rather than detail.

In this show, although not many Chinese enterprises were participating, impressed with cutters and cold laminators, as well as AD materials from China. This was encouraging on the fact that Chinese products can finally make their presence in leading markets.

After attending the exhibition in Japan, 50 representatives of Chinasigns and the Printing Association of China visited the headquarters of EPSON in Nagano and the headquarters of ROLAND in Hamamatsu. Both companies are the leaders in the large format printer field, all the while being partners and advertising customers of Chinasigns. Most Chinese representatives attended in behalf of  suppliers, retailers and customers of Chinese printers. They aimed at getting to know the latest printhead and digital textile printing developing trends, as well as those from the special printing field. In ROLAND, they knew the detailed information of the assembly and production process in E-shop factories. The delegation received a warm welcome from both EPSON and ROLAND companies.



The cutters from China on exhibition.


Salesmen from EPSON and  delegation from Chinasigns at the factory of EPSON


Delegation at the Roland's production workshop