VISUAL IMPACT happening now!

Visual Impact is in mid-flight and has plenty to offer as the show welcomes a number of visitors coming in for the Expo, the Connect Conference and the ASGA Awards Gala Dinner. Bear left when you enter the show and Ball & Doggett will urge you to START here with them. Bear right and you could be excused for thinking you’ve wandered into your favourite record store, with GAMART as your guide. And if you choose to walk straight ahead, you’ll be flanked by HP and Roland DG, then Stick On Signs and Mimaki, before finding Epson, Celmac, Pozitive and Mutoh amongst many others.

Graphic Art Mart introduces The Edit

 

Investing in one of the largest stands at the show, GAMART’s innovative theme for Visual Impact – The Edit – delivers an immersive, gallery-inspired experience where every product represented by GAMART has been selected for its performance, innovation and creative potential. Across the stand, visitors can explore solutions from Avery Dennison, Arlon, Utopia, 3M, Aslan, Nekoosa, Mactac, Xanita, Ex-Cel, Nufoam, Nuflute and Siser – covering digital print media, automotive films, PPF, window tint, reflective and specialty films, wall and floor graphics, rigid substrates and apparel decoration. To-date, Graphic Art Mart is probably leading the way too with equipment sold off the stand. With KwikKopy Pitt Street already snapping up a Mimaki UJ330H-160 and Printtrade buying two of the new Summa F Series Vantage 1625, early signs from The Edit and its inherent request for customers to ‘find their favourite’ are more than encouraging.

Ball & Doggett running further

More prizes for innovation have to go to the brightly-coloured Ball & Doggett team. Donning bright orange running tops and a commitment to ‘run customers around the various stands – Running Further from START to FINISH – to see products that B&D represents’ is nothing short of marketing genius. Fun, frivolous, but also clever, the experience, for those who take them up, can only serve to cement both customer relationships and their relationships with the suppliers they represent.

HEXIS brings Candy to the show

Alongside its advanced Bodyfence range with X Technology – BodyfenceX and BodyXFAST. fhe focus for HEXIS at Visual Impact is firmly on its new CandyFence 7.5mil carbon fibre PPF range. But more colour only reveals a small part of the company’s Visual Impact ambition, who are keen to leave visitors with an understanding that it has films and wraps for almost every use, from robust outdoor options that might be used on a windfarm or similar, through to purpose-designed boat bottom protection films, that prevent barnacles from growing and push the timeline for changing out of the film from a one- to two-year cycle.

Pozitive signs with Summa at centre

As is often the case, the Pozitive Sign & Graphics team create a contagious energy. Picking that the likely audience for Visual Impact is different to, say a PacPrint, Pozitive left its swissQprint toys at home and focused on a strong consumable range, fronted by the newly launched Summa F Series Vantage range, running the F1612 on stand – the first time this system has been seen in Australia. Targeted at signage and visual display customers looking to expand their applications into more rigid materials, such as aluminium, the Summa F Series Vantage is available in two sizes, the F1625 (160x250cm) – recently named at FESPA as the best Wide Format digital cutting solution amongst the EDP Awards – and the F1612. Summa claims that both table deliver 40% productivity gains thanks to the integration of a new 3.7kW high-frequency router and several tangential cutting modules.

Relationships that stick with Stick On Signs

One of the busiest stands to-date – Stick on Signs – sees Abe Weiszberger and his team (pictured here) selling the ever-reliable Neschen laminators. Maximising every inch of the stand, one side houses a Neschen EcoLam and ColdLam (not quite enough room for the Swing Arm version) and the other side showcasing the wide range of specialty print media from Nekoosa (sold through GAMART for Wide Format and a range of leading distributors for the rest of the product range).

Epson larger than life

Epson promised to bring a larger than life presence to the show and that’s exactly what they have delivered. With a stand designed to highlight Epson’s industry-leading expertise in colour, detail and large-format output, the SureColor V4000 undoubtedly takes centre stage. Developed as a compact UV flatbed solution that opens the door to premium-value production for businesses wanting to move into customised products, décor and short-run signage, the SureColor V4000 is a sibling model to the larger SureColor V7000, but it offers many of the benefits of flatbed UV production in a more accessible format for operations that may not need the size, footprint or investment level of a larger system. For Visual Impact visitors, the V4000 is especially relevant because it represents the kind of technology that can help businesses broaden their capabilities without overextending resources

HP shows scalable latex

Front and centre of the show, as always, HP is keen to put its best foot forward. With its increasingly popular R530 entry-level latex printer, the first piece of equipment that anyone visiting the show sees, a little further on and they will also see the FS70W in operation. Fittingly a 2026 Pinnacle Award winner in the Output category, everything about this machine is scalable, yet robust. Customers can enter the platform at the lower-specification FS50 and add upgrade kits over time to bring the machine up to FS70W performance, rather than replacing the whole unit. This deliberate engineering shift – sharing the same print heads, while allowing components such as cleaning stations, motors and ink pumps to be added or swapped in or out – a direct response to customer feedback, understanding that many print businesses are reluctant to face the capital expense of a full machine replacement every five years and want equipment that can keep pace with market demands instead.

Mimaki focusing on collaboration

Another expo Gold Sponsor, Mimaki, welcomes customers onto its stand with not one but two of its new UJ330H-160 hybrid UV printers running, to demonstrate the printer’s roll-to-roll and rigid applications at the same time. Also showcasing the UJV200 Series, developed to make high-quality UV roll-to-roll printing more accessible, and Mimaki’s high-performance UV print & cut UCJV330, alongside the TxF300 DTF solution for apparel decoration, the company’s best-selling print & cut solution CJV200 rounds off the product offering. But also noticeable on the Mimaki stand was the number of Mimaki team members in attendance. In part because the Mimaki Partner dinner was locked in for the first evening of the show, but also a clear reflection of Mimaki’s over-arching theme of collaboration and partnership, which definitely emanates from the stand.

Mutoh: hidden in plain sight

With a very visible focus on the Mutoh stand on its XpertJet 661UF and XpertJet 1462UF, both capable of producing compliant Braille and full-colour tactile graphics in a single pass, new Managing Director Romano Bacci, could also be found deep in conversation with Brother International Australia Managing Director, Kazunori Nagaya, both awaiting more direction from Japan as to how Brother’s recent acquisition of Mutoh might unfold locally. There was clearly no inference of anything but optimism for the future as Mutoh maintains a clear vision on its current and future market horizons, its digital braille opportunity only a small, but important piece in a product mix that continues to demonstrate a strong understanding of its customers’ needs.

Make your Mark with Roland DG: through the company’s new industrial UV flatbed inkjet solutions, including the VersaObject IO-300, the RC-300 series of cylindrical UV printers; and a newly developed Hard UV Ink engineered for enhanced durability in demanding industrial applications. The first opportunity too to see the newly launched VersaStudio BY2‑20, a compact Direct‑To‑Film (DTF) printer designed to deliver consistent, high-quality apparel production with confidence’.

Currie Group fields potential Canon Colorado XL customers: visitors are invited to touch and feel a selection of samples printed on the new Canon Colorado XL, to help them better understand the capabilities of this new 3.4m hybrid graphics production printer series, which offers the power of UVgel in a larger format both on rigid and flexible media,

Real Solutions from Celmac: Celmac’s Visual Impact message is all about helping its customers understand the key role cutting and finishing plays in their workflow, bringing customers products from two of the most respected global brands in this space, with operational systems on its stand from Neolt Factory, as well as the iECHO SKII cutting solution.

PrintIQ turning production knowledge into automation: showing how pdfToolbox is not just a preflight engine, but quickly becomes a production composition and decision-making engine that enables users to position, flip, compose, and prepare large-format production files in ways that match how your company actually produces jobs. This and more automation workflow tools from the Workflowz team.

Try-time on SMARTECH with Waratahs support: SMARTECH pulled out all the stops on Day One, bringing in the support of the NSW Waratahs to attract visitors to its stand, Front and centre is the highly versatile JWEI SG-1625 digital cutting system, designed for signage, packaging, labels and display graphics.

GJS brings Brother GTX300: GJS premieres the newly launched Brother GTX300 hybrid DTG/DTF garment printer, which combines direct-to-garment and direct-to-film printing in a single compact machine at a new, lower price point. The GTX300 allows decorators to switch between DTG and DTF production workflows without adding additional equipment, enabling them to print on cotton and natural-fibre garments via DTG while extending to polyester, blended fabrics, performance materials, and oversized or non-traditional print locations via DTF.

ASGA a hive of activity: Maintaining a key focus on useful content for its members, ASGA has definitely been one of the busiest teams so far, delivering The Future of Apprenticeship Education with BuildSkills, the National Government authority in charge of implementing/maintaining Cert III in Signwriting, on Day One and short course on Signage Education and Signage Building Licensing Explained. Next stop the much-vaunted ASGA Awards Gala Dinner and After Party