….Or perhaps I should write, Nexpo withered.

No matter how you want to slice it or dice it, last month’s annual exhibition was marked by who wasn’t there rather than who did appear.

The Newspaper Association of America said 1,500 people registered for Nexpo (in addition to the 1,800 vendor representatives), but of those 1,500, it appeared as if fewer than 40 percent were legitimate potential customer from newspapers. The rest? I’m not sure, unless NAA was counting carpet fibers.

As you might expect, vendors were less than enchanted with the turnout. It’s not that they didn’t expect the lower attendance. But it was obvious that many companies were still surprised floor traffic was as sparse as it was, especially the first two days of the meeting.

Chuck Moozakis, Editor-In-Chief
Newspapers & Technology Magazine

As a result, exhibitors weren’t shy about expressing their frustrations when they had a chance to address a publishers panel consisting of McClatchy’s Gary Pruitt, MediaNews Group’s William Dean Singleton, Hearst’s George Irish and GateHouse Media’s Michael Reed.

Among the questions posed: How can vendors justify the expenses associated with exhibiting at Nexpo when publishers won’t let their operations and production staffers travel?

Panel members were quick to say they don’t dictate whether or not their papers send personnel to Nexpo, but that response didn’t mollify vendors. They weren’t much happier with Reed’s comment that even though GateHouse has 100 papers, it doesn’t employ 100 decision-makers. Instead, Reed said GateHouse sent six staffers to Washington.

But Willem Kok got the award for most provocative question. Kok, chairman of press reseller Graphic Web Systems in the Netherlands, pointedly asked the panel why U.S. newspapers lag behind their European counterparts when it comes to color and production technologies and what investments publishers intended to take to bridge the gap.

It was an intriguing question, but one easily parried by Singleton, who cited the $500 million he said MNG has spent in the past few years to upgrade facilities in Denver, Salt Lake City and elsewhere. Irish, meantime, cited Hearst’s decision to buy a new press in Albany, N.Y. (see page one) and its multimillion investment with Transcontinental Inc. to print the San Francisco Chronicle.

Pruitt could only manage an “I concur,” stating that “adding color is key” while Reed, probably happy that the session’s time was almost up, didn’t say anything at all.

Alas, more and more of the industry’s vital suppliers are finding too many potential buyers not saying anything at all. And that silence is what’s spooking them more than anything else.

At Newspapers & Technology, we’re anything but silent. Check out our newest feature, News&Tech Radio, on our Web site at www.newsandtech.com. Look for News&Tech Radio icons sprinkled throughout the May edition and log on to hear interviews we conducted on the floor at last month’s Nexpo. Let us know what you think.