To say that nobody has, in recent years, been happy with the annual newspaper industry trade show NEXPO is perhaps an overstatement. But suffice it to say that the event has been plagued by declining or stagnant attendance for almost a decade, which has caused fewer newspaper suppliers to buy booth space from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), which has caused a certain strain on the group's budget, which in turn cycles back to the newspapers being asked to pay for a larger portion of the program, which has made all those generally associated with the event grumpy.

Last year the Vienna, Va.-based trade association announced a multipronged effort to change both the perception of the event and the content of the event.

This year starts a process by which eventually all the NAA's many programs that traditionally happen in the spring or summer will be held together with NEXPO. This year the SuperConference operations meeting has been melded into the mix, along with the meeting of classified advertising executives. In the future, other NAA events -- including on a once-every-four-year cycle the group's annual convention -- will meet concurrent with NEXPO. Further, technical user groups are being approached about holding their meetings concurrent with the show, as well as moving the show out of the summer and holding it more frequently on the East Coast (next year it's in Washington, D.C. and the following year it moves to the spring). Lastly, an advisory committee -- which includes suppliers -- has been established.

But this year Nexpo's in Las Vegas, June 16-19, at the Convention Center. It's clear from the suppliers who signed up for exhibit space that though some have had to tighten the belt, many more have taken large spaces on the show floor. There is also a healthy percentage of new players in the market showing at NEXPO for the first time. Now, let's just hope that there are more than one or two executives who show up to see the show.

Inside I provide you with my traditional Top 50 booths to see at the show (slanted, of course, toward pre-press and editorial), as well as my traditional Top Seven list. The number seven was chosen because that's just about the quantity of booths one can see in one day, should one's boss suggest that attendance at NEXPO be a parachute assignment (or, should one decide that the two Gs -- golf and gambling -- are more important than a trade show and conference). This is all supplemented by the traditional four-color map of the show floor.

What are the trends? On-line ad order entry -- giving the customer the ability to write and place a liner, or (even better) the ability to typeset and compose the ad on-line -- is a category that's heating up. Full-page on-line replica editions of the newspaper -- which auditors can count toward print circulation -- are a hot item and there are a lot more people talking a lot more intelligently about eXtensible Markup Language this year than there have been in the past. It appears that computer-to-plate is a fait accompli; while the plates still aren't cheap enough, the ancillary benefits make CTP a smart choice.

But the real show won't be on the floor -- or even at a floor show in a Vegas hotel -- but in the back rooms, the suites, the restaurants and the bars.

In those out-of-the-way places there will be various games of blackjack, where suppliers and customers change roles as dealer and player. Everyone will get two face cards and have to decide whether spending more money right now is a gamble or not.

¶

Mechanics: Those of you with keen eyes will note this is the "May 2003" issue, implying that either this NEXPO preview came out very early or the May issue is very late. Assume the latter.

But this situation will allow us to send you a "June 2003" issue rather quickly following the show and we'll have a "July 2003" issue shortly after that.

And in those future issues we will return this edition's missing features, the Hellbox and the Bit bucket.

See you in Vegas.

-- David M. Cole, e-mail: dmc@colepapers.net

Contents

• Top 50 (1-16)

• Top 50 (17-34)

• Top 50 (35-50)

• Floor map

The top seven exhibits to visit:

7 Anygraaf USA Inc.: The Finns' first visit and they come bearing a full range of products.

12 CCI Europe: In this day and age, the gold standard against which everyone else is measured.

18 Digital Technology International: The most consistent vision for the industry.

26 Mactive Inc.: Here's what I said last year: "Can all those newspapers be wrong? The industry's ad-order-entry darling."

30 Morris Digital Works: An interesting array of new media products, brewed up by newspaper people.

32 NewsEngin Inc.: Every year these guys bring out a new product and every year it's great.

50 Zope Corp.: Don't be turned off by the new media moniker; don't be a dope, visit Zope.

From THE COLE PAPERS, May 2003
Copyright © 2003, All Rights Reserved.