The battle for the hearts and minds of both converters and their machinery and material suppliers has just turned up a notch or two in the trade-show arena. Along with the established CMM International and the relatively new Converting Expos, add upstart CPP 2005, a new converting and package-printing event set for Sept. 26-28, 2005, in Las Vegas.

With a decline in attendance, exhibitors and square footage paralleling the slowing economy since 2001, CMM International is extensively reinventing itself for the next edition, April 18-21, 2005 at Chicago's McCormick Place. New managers include Paperloop CEO Ian Johnston as president, and Erich Herbert as sales director. Changes so far include an expanded AIMCAL Pavilion as well as an FTA-sponsored Label & Carton Pavilion. Stay tuned for more announcements, CMM says.

Converting Expo, which has run alongside the Graphic Arts Show Co.'s Graph Expo events since 1998, is getting a boost (and a name change) next year as Converting 05. It will run concurrently with PRINT® 05, Sept. 9-15, 2005, again at McCormick Place.

Printing and converting increasingly share exhibition halls at other events around the world, says GASC president Regis Delmontagne. Read that to mean primarily Germany's DRUPA. And of course, much commercial-print technology overlaps with package printing.

Taking the downstream packaging-industry approach with converting is CPP 2005, which will run with the PMMI-sponsored Pack Expo Las Vegas at the Sands Expo Ctr. The new show, organized by H.A. Bruno LLC, is managed by Leo Nadolske, who ran the CMM International events for 14 years.

"Our tagline is 'everything from substrate to shelf,'" says Nadolske. "We surveyed PMMI's Partners in Packaging groups, consumer-product companies such as Kraft and ConAgra, and they love the idea of being able to see everything from package design to printing to converting to using the finished materials on the packaging line." About 2,500 converters attended Pack Expo Las Vegas last fall, he adds.

CPP 2005 is bringing converting full circle back to its roots as part of the entire packaging process, Nadolske continues. "Back in 1978, the converting section of Pack Expo Chicago was spun-off into what is known today at CMM." CPP is expected to fill 150,000 sq ft at the Sands, along with the 500,000 sq ft of exhibit space occupied by Pack Expo.

New-kid CPP is also fighting its recognized competitors with comments on Chicago's high union and other costs, and the fact that Las Vegas has become a respectable trade-show venue. In addition, cross-traffic between the two shows will be free, as attendees need only one badge.

What does all this mean for the average converter? More choice and more opportunities to see the latest technologies in person—for one thing. What does it mean for suppliers? More choice and more hard decisions about where to spend their exhibit dollars.

It will be like a classic Economics 101 lesson: Can the market support three converting shows (four, really, if you count Labelexpo Americas)? Each seems to have a niche cut out for itself, and each has its liabilities to overcome. Only time will tell.