Business · Events
The industry's next trade show opens Wednesday, and PacPrint's website still says 2025
If you are trying to work out where the industry meets next, the
organiser has answered it plainly: Visual Connections says The next industry trade show
will be Visual Impact Conference & Expo 2026
, running 2 to 4 September
2026 at Sydney Showground. That is this Wednesday to Friday. The more interesting
part is what is not there. PacPrint, the show that has anchored this industry since
1970, has no published 2027 date, and its own website still describes its May 2025
show in the future tense.
What is actually on
Visual Impact's own site says The 2026 Visual Impact Expo will run from 2-4 September,
2026 at the Sydney Showground, Sydney Olympic Park
, and that This year, the show has
been totally reimagined, consolidating its place as the leading event for the visual
communications sector
. Visual Connections lists the venue as The Dome and Hall 2A at the
Showground, and pairs the expo with a Connect Conference.
Both organisations are the same organiser: Visual Connections is the supplier association that runs the shows, and it lists Visual Impact under its 2026 events and a PacPrint 2025 post-show report under 2025.
What is not on, and how we checked
Trade coverage in 2022 reported that PacPrint would move to a two-year cycle alternating between Melbourne and Sydney, which would put a Melbourne show in 2027. We have never been able to confirm that against the organiser, and we still cannot. Here is the state of the record as at 29 August 2026.
| Page | What it says |
|---|---|
| pacprint.com.au | Titled “PacPrint25”. States that PacPrint 25 will be held in Sydney from 20-23 May, 2025, lists that show's daily opening hours, and directs readers to For more information on PacPrint 2025, please contact Visual Connections. No 2027 date, no Melbourne. The footer copyright reads 2016. |
| visualconnections.org.au, events | Names Visual Impact Conference & Expo 2026 as the next industry trade show. PacPrint appears under 2025 events, as a post-show report. |
| visualconnections.org.au/pacprint | Returns a 404. |
What we are not saying. None of this means PacPrint has been cancelled, and we do not report that. A trade show can be between cycles, and an out-of-date event website is an out-of-date event website, not an announcement. What we can report is narrower and checkable: fifteen months after PacPrint 25 finished, the organiser publishes no date for the next one, names a different show as the industry's next, and the PacPrint site has not been updated. We have not contacted Visual Connections to ask.
Why it matters to a printer planning a year
Capital equipment gets bought at these shows, or at least first seen at them. A biennial
show is a planning anchor: it tells a business when the next chance to compare presses in one
room will be. Since 1970, PacPrint has been that anchor, and its own site still makes the claim
in the present tense, describing itself as the most comprehensive and relevant B2B event
serving the evolving needs of the print, sign and graphics industries in Australia, New Zealand
and across the Asia-Pacific region
.
For 2026 the answer is Visual Impact, and it is next week. For 2027, on the published record, there is no answer yet. If you are budgeting for a stand or a trip, that is the practical position, and it is worth asking the organiser directly rather than relying on a four-year-old trade report.
Sources
- Visual Connections, Tradeshow & Events (read 29 August 2026): the quoted statement that the next industry trade show will be Visual Impact Conference & Expo 2026; the listing of that expo under 2026 events on 2-4 September 2026 at The Dome and Hall 2A, Sydney Showground, Sydney Olympic Park; and the listing of PacPrint under 2025 events as a post-show report. The association's own /pacprint path returned a 404 on the same day.
- Visual Impact, Visual Impact Expo & Connect Conference 2026 (read 29 August 2026): the quoted dates and venue for the 2026 expo, and the quoted description of the show having been reimagined for this year.
- PacPrint, pacprint.com.au (read 29 August 2026, page saved): the page title PacPrint25; the quoted future-tense statement that PacPrint 25 will be held in Sydney from 20-23 May 2025; the daily opening hours for that show; the quoted direction to contact Visual Connections for more information on PacPrint 2025; the quoted description of PacPrint as the most comprehensive and relevant B2B event for the sector; the statement that PacPrint has run since 1970; the venue as The Dome, Hall 2 and 3, Sydney Showground; and the absence of any 2027 date or Melbourne reference anywhere on the page.
Methodology. All three pages were fetched and read in full on 29 August 2026, and the PacPrint home page was saved so the state of the record on that date is preserved. Every quotation is verbatim from the page cited. The 2022 trade report of a Melbourne 2027 show is described but deliberately not cited or linked, because it is a competing trade masthead and our rule is to treat such reporting as a lead to verify rather than a source to repeat; the point here is precisely that we could not verify it. We have not contacted Visual Connections, so this reports the published record only and no conclusion should be drawn about the show's future from it.
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