My Long Beach notes (after four years of being away):
* Very well attended; spent a lot of time catching up which was really fun & good. So many people that more than once I left booths because there were so many people and I was just stopping by to say hello. The industry was out and happy to have a show to walk
* Yes, tons of DTF, so much in fact that I'm thinking of waiting another year before jumping in to see if anything/any company shakes out or separates themselves from the pack. We also print a lot of large coverage spot color work with PMS matching, so would have to really think about how to dial in a system to account for PMS matching/getting close enough.
* As someone else said, AI was a part of so many conversations. From vendors demonstrating AI-generated designs (M&R) to AI being the focal point of the Ink Kitchen's talk on future of the industry; it's certainly on people's minds. People are trying to figure out how to use it to help improve workflow, push content, and speed up production.
* Lots of smaller apparel vendors, I got some names but since we're east coast I'm a lot more picky as to whether I want to work with a shipping-only-from-CA smaller outfit. Seems like earth tones and pastel type colors are still popular. LA T's is offering more prints (snake skin, cheetah like prints..).
* Ink manufacturers: not as many as used to be with so many under the Avient umbrella.
* various reclaim systems from Bluewater to Image Technology to the European ones.
all in all, a good show!
