by Stephen McWilliam
Executive Vice President, Avanti – sjm@avantisystems.com
As we were preparing for Graph Expo 14, we went through the typical process of deciding what the focus should be for us this year. Graph Expo is one of the larger shows that we attend, and it’s an opportunity for us to meet with some of our long-term customers, new prospects, and partners. There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into planning an event of this size, but no matter how much we prepare, all it takes is one tiny thing to derail plans.
This year, we definitely saw our share of this. On Friday, September 26th, a contract employee set a fire at a suburban Chicago air traffic control center, bringing two of the nation’s busiest airports to a halt. Reminiscent of the movie: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, only a few members of our team made it into Chicago in time to get our booth set up and ready for the show.
Others were not as fortunate; some folks didn’t make it out until Monday, when the show was already in full swing, and others simply gave up. And although this impacted traffic on the show floor on the first day of the show, we were relieved when we began to see the crowds by mid-day Monday. And wow… there were crowds.
There is simply no comparison to live, face-to-face interactions with people, and this year’s event exceeded everyone’s expectations. Our brand new booth got rave reviews and dramatically increased our demo capacity. For much of the show, it was standing-room only, as people crammed in for demos of Avanti Slingshot. We are extremely proud to have won a MUST SEE EM for Avanti Slingshot’s Advanced JDF Framework workflow module, as well as a Reader’s Choice award from DPS Magazine.
We are also thankful to our partners. We had two pods in the Ricoh booth and received tremendous exposure from our friends in the Printerverse. They made me feel extremely comfortable during my “live print chat” interview and I had the chance to answer some great live tweets as well as connect with other vendors and delegates. You never knew what was going to happen next; I think I even saw a real alien!
We are already looking forward to Graph Expo 15!
About Avanti (www.avantisystems.com)
Avanti develops innovative, award-winning Print MIS solutions that help print and communication organizations automate all facets of their business and cultivate a more meaningful relationship with their customer.
Since 1984, Avanti has been providing industry-leading and JDF-certified print management software to Commercial and In-Plant print shops. The company has developed the most open industry solutions for Sheetfed, Web, Digital, Large Format, and Binderies with integrated modules extending from the Internet through to the shop floor, CRM, and invoicing.
