15-18 June 2027
Crocus Expo, Moscow
The global digital print market is projected to reach $251.1 billion by 2035 - around 50% higher than its 2025 value. That growth reframes the classic offset vs digital question from a technical debate to a commercial one: which process best serves your run length, turnaround, compliance, and personalisation targets in a given market?
For print buyers across CIS and Eurasia, the answer shapes procurement decisions. For suppliers and converters considering their presence at Printech 2026, it shapes the entire commercial argument you make on the show floor.
This guide sets clear terms for both audiences and links them to practical outcomes.
Offset lithography rewards volume. Once plates are made and colour is dialled in, unit cost falls as run length rises - which suits catalogues, magazines, and large batches of static packaging. Colour stability is strong across long runs, and the process handles a wide range of coated and uncoated stocks. Plants with predictable, high-volume schedules often build their entire workflow around offset to maximise crew and finishing line efficiency.
For buyers tendering national rollouts or retail replenishment programmes, offset provides a reliable cost curve and exact colour consistency across multiple pallets and extended delivery windows.
For exhibitors: If your portfolio is offset-focused, Printech puts you directly in front of the high-volume buyers who need what you're selling. With 3,200+ print and advertising decision-makers on the show floor - 74% of whom hold senior positions - the conversations that matter happen here.
Digital shines when speed, flexibility, and variable data drive the brief. Without plates, changeovers shrink and small batches stay economical. Personalised packs, multilingual SKUs, test-market sleeves, and on-demand manuals move from art files to finished prints in hours rather than days. As average run lengths contract and SKU counts rise, digital's ability to handle multiple micro-jobs with minimal waste directly protects margin.
Industry analysis links shorter runs directly to digital's rise - set-up costs weigh more heavily when volumes are modest. That trend is already well established in European packaging, where declining run lengths have pushed significant volumes toward digital methods.
For exhibitors: If your digital print proposition is built on speed and flexibility, Printech is where you demonstrate it live - against real files, in front of buyers who arrive with live briefs and budgets to spend. 41% of visitors have made direct purchases at Printech. These are not browsers.
Decision-makers don't need a laboratory. They need a clear framework. Use these thresholds to test your assumptions, then validate with live samples at the show.
| Decision Factor | Offset | Digital |
|---|---|---|
| Run length | Wins on long, static runs | Wins on short batches with frequent changeovers |
| Time to market | Days - plates and approvals required | Hours - once files are final |
| Artwork variance | Single approved master across high volumes | Many SKUs or variable data handled efficiently |
| Compliance | Strong across food and cosmetics sectors | Variable data enables traceability, serialisation, and recall management |
| Cash flow | Lower unit cost when demand is locked in | Lower set-up cost reduces risk when forecasts are uncertain |
Neither process wins in the abstract. The correct answer is the one that matches your work mix, your timelines, and your compliance requirements.
Across CIS and Eurasia, buyers regularly request multilingual packs, frequent design refreshes, and reliable compliance across multiple jurisdictions. Many converters still operate offset-heavy fleets, yet rising demand for shorter runs and faster changeovers is consistent and growing. That creates a clear path for blended strategies: keep long, static work on offset and add digital lines or partners for agile batches and data-rich labels.
This is the demand signal suppliers need to understand. The buyers who are actively investing in both technologies - and the partnerships to support them - are concentrated in one place in June.
Printech's co-location with RosUpack at Crocus Expo brings packaging and print decision-makers together under one roof, creating a larger shared audience to test applications, run live comparisons, and plan next steps with real commercial intent.
A live printing industry exhibition is the most efficient way to replace guesswork with evidence. For buyers, bring production files that reflect your real work and run the same jobs on both processes. For exhibitors, configure your stand around the specific comparisons your target buyers are making.
Key metrics to capture and compare on the show floor:
Make-ready time, waste, and colour first-pass yield
Throughput at target quality across preferred substrates
Finishing hand-off times and bottlenecks
Variable data handling for serials, languages, and promotional content
Total cost of ownership - ink or toner, plates, maintenance, and operator time
Buyers who leave with signed-off samples and a shared ROI model move faster on capex approvals. Exhibitors who run live comparisons on real files close more conversations in hall than those who rely on spec sheets alone.
The Forum of Printing and Advertising Production, hosted on-site at Printech, adds sessions that translate technology choices into market plans - with a focus on printing market growth, profitability, and future materials and equipment.
The results from previous editions speak clearly:
94% of exhibitors engaged existing clients
89% reported boosted brand visibility
78% gained new leads
These are not participation metrics. They are commercial outcomes. For suppliers and converters weighing the ROI of their Printech presence, the question is not whether the audience is there. It is whether you are.
Offset rewards long, stable runs with excellent colour consistency and low unit cost. Digital turns short runs, frequent changes, and personalisation into a reliable commercial margin. The right answer depends entirely on your work mix, your market, and your clients' expectations.
Use Printech 2026 to test both processes on real files, compare results with buyers in the aisle, and leave with a plan that balances cost, speed, and market reach.
Secure your stand at Printech 2026 - enquire here
