中文Visual Connections, the Australian industry suppliers’ association, has announced PacPrint in Action, a new trade event scheduled for the first two days of September next year at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The show will run alongside the first Connect Conference to be held in Melbourne, building on the Sydney edition that took place in September.
Where traditional trade shows lean heavily on machinery specifications and equipment rows, PacPrint in Action is being positioned as an immersive, applications-led event. Visual Connections says it will showcase the materials, applications, and creative solutions transforming packaging, signage, decor, textiles, promotional products, and visual communications.
The stated aim is to help exhibitors demonstrate real-world outcomes and finished applications, show innovation beyond equipment specifications, and connect with buyers seeking new products, ideas, and opportunities across numerous markets. For print business owners and managers attending, the promise is a host of creative solutions they could take to market.
The new expo will span applications and capability in labels and packaging, sign and display, interiors, textile and garment printing, 2D, 3D, and textured solutions, promotional products, and sustainability applications. That breadth reflects how far commercial print has diversified beyond its traditional core as providers chase higher-value, differentiated work.
Up to 40 exhibitors are expected to take space, with major names including Mimaki, Roland DG, and Celmac already signed on. Stand sizes will be offered at 9, 18, or 36 square meters, giving suppliers flexibility to match their demonstration needs and budgets.
PacPrint in Action arrives twelve months before the next full PacPrint, which Visual Connections now runs on a three-year cycle alternating between Melbourne and Sydney. PacPrint 2028 will take place in August, resuming the larger-format event that remains the anchor of the Australian print calendar.
The pairing with the Connect Conference is deliberate. While PacPrint in Action focuses on what can be made and the outcomes it delivers, the Connect Conference is built to address the business, technology, and strategy questions facing print leaders. Holding the two together lets attendees move between inspiration on the show floor and structured learning in the conference program.
For the Australian market, the launch comes at a moment of cautious optimism. Printers have spent recent years navigating cost pressures, digital substitution in some segments, and an uneven post-pandemic recovery. Events that emphasize tangible applications and sellable solutions, rather than capital-intensive equipment, may resonate with businesses weighing where to invest next.
Visual Connections has a track record of adapting its event formats to member needs, and the applications-first concept appears calibrated to a membership that increasingly sells outcomes, not just output. By foregrounding finished applications, the show also lowers the barrier for creative agencies, brand managers, and product designers who may attend as buyers rather than as printers.
The Melbourne location adds strategic weight. As a design, food, and culture hub, the city draws the kind of cross-industry audience that applications-led printing needs to reach. Running the Connect Conference there for the first time extends that reach.
If the format lands, PacPrint in Action could become a template for how regional print associations keep trade events relevant in an industry where the headline question is less about what a machine can do and more about what a business can sell.
Source: Print21 (original article: PACPRINT IN ACTION TO SHOW APPLICATIONS AND OUTCOMES, by Wayne Robinson, October 14, 2026).
The applications-first reframing is a shrewd response to a structural problem in print trade shows: the audience that buys the big iron is shrinking, while the audience that buys printed outcomes is expanding and often sits outside the traditional printer cohort. By leading with finished applications rather than press specifications, Visual Connections lowers the activation energy for agencies, brand managers, and product designers to walk the floor, exactly the buyers printers most want to meet. The co-location with the Connect Conference is the other clever piece, pairing inspiration with the business-case thinking that converts curiosity into investment. For Australian printers emerging from a rocky few years, an event that foregrounds sellable solutions rather than capital expenditure feels timed to the mood. The risk, as with any new format, is that applications without enough depth become a gallery rather than a marketplace. Much will depend on whether exhibitors bring genuine case studies and live demonstrations rather than brochures on stands. If they do, PacPrint in Action could reset expectations for what a regional print event should be. The format also reflects a wider reckoning among trade-show organizers everywhere, who have watched attendance fracture as buyers tire of equipment theaters that speak to engineers rather than to the commercial questions owners actually weigh. By centering outcomes, Visual Connections is betting that relevance, not square meters of machinery, will draw the next generation of attendees. If the Melbourne debut proves the thesis, expect other regional associations to copy the model rather than risk irrelevance.
