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EVENTS
44
Northern Lights, a two-day event
held at The Lowry in Salford Quays,
Manchester, took place on March
10-11. At the time of going to press,
Marketing Manager Sarah Crumpler
said that there were more than 140
people registered to attend the event,
but she was hopeful of attracting closer
to 200 on the day.
Crumpler added that Northern Lights
wasn’t simply a copy of Duplo’s established
London Calling print exhibition, which is held
every October in London’s Canary Wharf.
She said: “London Calling brings
together some of the leading names
in the print and finishing business and
demonstrates how customers can create
added value and increased revenue through
new applications and innovations.
“However, Northern Lights isn’t a
northern version of London Calling. It came
about on the back of a user forum we
established in the North, and it’s this that
steered the event’s direction. Our business
is driven by the feedback that we receive
from our customers and our events are
no different. Northern Lights is a platform
for us to demonstrate inspirational ideas,
innovative applications, more intelligent
technology and integrated solutions.”
Crumpler added: “The focus isn’t on
what the products can do, but more on
how they can be used to create greater
efficiencies or added value leading to
increased revenue streams.”
Owners’ Club
As well as showcasing entire digital
workflows, from pre- to post-press systems,
the inaugural ‘Northern Lights’ was the
official launchpad of a new initiative, the
Duplo Owners’ Club, which Duplo has set
up to improve customer communications
and increase focus on bookletmakers,
service and R&D.
The new customer-only forum, the first
meeting of which was chaired by Adrian
Tolley, Operations Director of Nottigham’s
Prime Group, is targeted at the directors of
print companies that use Duplo multi-
finishers.
An important feature of Duplo Owners’
Club meetings is that they aren’t attended
by Duplo employees. “This is a non-Duplo-
attended event so users can openly discuss
how they use the equipment, share ideas
and explore what we could be doing more
of to support them better,” explained
Crumpler.
She added that the new initiative is
designed to create a user community and
encourage dialogue between Duplo and
its customers, with feedback being used
to influence product development and
At the end of last year, print
finishing systems supplier
Duplo announced that it
was to hold a new event
in the North highlighting
how businesses can create
added value and increase
revenue through the latest
print applications and
innovations.
Northern Lights
innovation.
“The launch of the Duplo Owners’
Club and our first customer-only forum are
all part of a fresh approach to the way we
do customer communications, designed to
improve the two-way flow of information,”
Crumpler explained.
“Northern Lights brings together a
wide cross-section of industry experts
demonstrating live applications. All
initiatives are designed to help customers
develop new and existing revenue streams
alongside creating added value and
providing ideas for increasing workflow
efficiencies and reducing bottlenecks within
current processes.”
Another highlight of Northern Lights
were the hands-on operator sessions where
visitors could learn how to get the most
out of a DC-645 multi-finisher and System
500i bookletmaker system, two of Duplo’s
most popular products in the region. Duplo
product specialists, specialist trainers and
commercial partners were on hand to
provide expertise.
Northern Lights, which was free to
attend, also featured longer opening hours
than London Calling, staying open until 9pm
on the opening day and 5pm on the second
day. “We did this to provide a platform for
networking in a relaxed environment, as
well as providing time to get more hands-on
with all products,” said Crumpler.
Balreed partners Duplo
Northern Lights was supported by Balreed, which was there to show
visitors how to get the most from production print technology.
Before the event, Balreed Group Marketing Director Gary Downey said:
“We are delighted to be a headline partner at the Northern Lights show. We will be
demonstrating a variety of personalised workflow solutions and examples of how web-
to-print can be used to improve efficiency within organisations. Duplo’s London Calling
events are always a great success for us; I’m sure Northern Lights will be too.”
Northern Lights was
held at The Lowry
in the redeveloped
Salford Quays,
Manchester
Experts hosted
‘hands-on’ operator
demonstrations
of Duplo print
finishing systems
