Heidelberg's 5,700 sp m stand is one of the largest and most complex at Ipex 2002
Heidelberg's 5,700 sq m stand calls itself the World of Print Media Solutions and is undoubtedly one of the largest and most complex at the show.
The brains behind this mammoth feat is organisational mastermind Dennis Egerton, Heidelberg UK's national projects manager who bows out after the show for retirement in Spain.
His role as special projects manager means handling the sort of things that are outside the scope of other managers. For example, he project managed Heidelberg UK's whole Y2K compliance.
This, his swansong, is Mr Egerton's fourth Ipex. So he's confident that everything will run according to plan. Work on construction began on March 9, and Mr Egerton says it will finish one day ahead of schedule on April 6, giving the team a final day to tweak and refine at the last minute.
Core of Heidelberg's future
The stand is dominated in the centre by the Prinect prepress and digital workflow area, the core of Heidelberg's systems for the future. This area also houses a 42-seat theatre area for demonstrations and the environmental information centre, Print Media Academy and NTO information desks. Around this are spread the 12 colour SM 102 and ten-colour SM 74 in the industrial print segment. There's the new Stahl ST400 saddlestitcher and Polar 137 ED guillotine along with the prepress kit a commercial print house will need in these days. Alongside is the CD 74.5 LX and CD 102.6 LX showing quality commercial printing and inline coating, with saddlestitcher for finishing. While there's no web press in operation, the web section includes static Sunday 4000 and 2000 units, CS splicer and new PEM folder.
First UK showing
For jobbing printers there's the first UK showing of the Printmaster 74 two-colour press along with a SM 52 5P with inline diecutting, also having its first UK airing.
Digital print will feature two NexPresses and two Digimasters, one each for presentation and for demonstration. There will also be an SM DI 74, a QM DI 46.4 Pro-version as well as a Stahl folder and Polar guillotine. The postpress area houses a TDF8 mailer and other products from Heidelberg Finishing, as well as a Polar 137 ED with Autotrim, M-Labelling system and a DCio integrated diecutter.
Mr Egerton has also had to organise the supply of consumables across all the machinery. This will involve more than 350 tonnes of paper, 1,000 litres of solvents, 2,000 litres of water based coatings and 850 kg of inks. It expects to use 1,000 plates and 1,000 litres of developer and machine room solutions. Despite the huge quantities this is less than in Ipex 98, thanks to cost savings and running fewer presses.
This much kit and construction has clearly taken an intense amount of planning to get everything installed in the right order. Mr Egerton says Heidelberg "needed to bring in a substation for its power needs as the National Exhibition Centre could not provide enough for us. They provided the power cables and we provided the networking and audio visual cabling".
The lighting, the first thing to go in, took five days. The lighting rig has four stations of 450 amps each, which, according to Mr Egerton, is "bigger than lighting for a pop concert".
Theatrical effect
In addition the lights and sky-lights of the NEC above the stand have been blacked out to give a more theatrical effect.
Three days after the lighting arrived the first machines were delivered by 40ft trucks, driven straight into the hall. It has taken 30 days to set up the complete stand but, says Mr Egerton "we have only seven and a half days to dismantle it all, four and a half of which will be needed to get the machines out".
It has taken 174 individual service and technical staff to build and run the stand. There will also be 100 Heidelberg UK sales staff on hand during the show, taking the total number of working days spent at the NEC to 2,516. This is equivalent to 500 working weeks, or 11 years of a working life.
According to Mr Egerton, Heidelberg UK signed up for insurance for the show before September 11 2001, after which time terrorism clauses have increased premiums. He says: "We are fully insured with our main corporate insurer and have also taken out cover via the show's organiser IIR Exhibitions. We give all our staff a safety briefing and sales managers are responsible for evacuating each section of the stand, should we need to."
Changed climate
Since September 11 the design of the stand has been reviewed twice to take account of the changed climate. Heidelberg had originally reserved more space than in 1998, but this has since been cut back. Equally cost savings have been achieved by using stand components from previous exhibitions.
According to Mr Egerton: "This achieved quite a cost saving from our original budget, but I am not saying how much we spent."
As far as his Ipex memories go he says each show is better than the last, so he is expecting this to be the best so far.
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Postscript. Retiring to Spain lost it's appeal and Dennis and wife Julie moved to the village of Brechfa in September 2003