Sometimes the printing world feels like a long, bright ribbon stretched across continents, each month offering another stop where machines hum, inks glow, and ideas move faster than drying UV varnish. Below is a month-by-month glide through the shows shaping the year — a kind of living itinerary for anyone who moves through life with a badge lanyard in their suitcase.
January 13–15, 2026 — C!Print Madrid, Spain
The year opens in Madrid with a show that leans into tactile creativity. Designers, printers, and visual communication folks drift through halls filled with substrates begging to be touched and machines showing off new tricks. It’s a slow-on-the-surface, fast-underneath kind of beginning.
March 4–6, 2026 — South China International Exhibition on Printing Industry, Guangzhou
Guangzhou’s vast 4-in-1 expo — printing, packaging, labeling, converting — kicks the regional season into full sprint. It’s the kind of event where deals happen before lunch, and you can watch entire production lines assemble and run as if trying to outpace each other.
Late March 2026 — DPES Sign Expo, Changsha, China
Digital printing, engraving, large-format signage… it’s a tech-heavy showcase with a slightly electric vibe, perfect for catching the next wave of hardware upgrades before everyone else gets there.
May 6–9, 2026 — Global Printing & Packaging Expo, Jakarta, Indonesia
Jakarta brings a kind of vibrant commercial intensity — aisles packed with suppliers, converters, and packaging innovators. If you want a read on how Southeast Asia is scaling its print and packaging ecosystem, this is where it becomes obvious.
May 19–22, 2026 — FESPA Global Print Expo, Barcelona, Spain
This is the heartbeat event — wide-format, textile, specialty, sustainability projects, the whole spectrum under Fira Barcelona’s enormous roof. People come for the machinery but stay for the sense of momentum, as if every corner hints at where the craft will go next.
June 2–4, 2026 — PRINT TECH Shanghai, China
A sharp, tech-forward fair where pre-press automation, intelligent workflows, and cloud-linked systems take center stage. Shanghai always feels slightly ahead of the curve, showing what the printing floor might look like a few years out.
September 15–17, 2026 — Labelexpo Americas, Chicago, USA
The label and packaging world’s big Western Hemisphere moment. Presses roar, converters compare speed-to-market advantages, and sustainability turns from catchphrase into procurement strategy.
September 23–25, 2026 — PRINTING United Expo, Las Vegas, USA
Las Vegas gathers all segments — signage, apparel, industrial, commercial — into one sweeping panorama. It’s the closest thing the industry gets to a full, all-encompassing snapshot of its present and near future.
September 29–October 1, 2026 — The Print Show, Birmingham, UK
Europe closes the season with a more intimate but still energetic gathering at the NEC. Buyers walk the aisles, vendors run machines at full tilt, and conversations drift from production headaches to long-term strategy over tea.
By the time autumn fades, you can trace the whole arc of the industry across these dates — a calendar that doubles as a map of how print continues evolving, pushing, and surprising anyone willing to keep following the trail.