Business · Events
PacPrint skips 2027 and returns in August 2028. A new two-day event fills the gap
We reported in August that the industry's main trade show had no forward date published anywhere on its organiser's sites, and said we would look again after Visual Impact ran. It has, and the answer is now up: PacPrint 2028, in Melbourne, with a new two-day event called PacPrint in Action on 1-2 September 2027 in the lead up to it. That puts three years and three months between PacPrint 25 and the next PacPrint.
Visual Connections, which runs the shows, states it plainly on its events page:
The next industry trade show will be PacPrint in Action & Connect Conference 2027 in
Melbourne from 1-2 September 2027.
Under a 2027 heading the same page carries PACPRINT IN ACTION 2027
, separately
Connect Conference 2027
, and the venue Melbourne Convention & Exhibition
Centre
. It describes what the new event is:
In the lead up to PacPrint 2028, we're introducing PacPrint In Action: an immersive new-format
event showcasing materials, applications and applied printing production.
Under a 2028 heading it carries PacPrint 2028 | August 2028 | Melbourne Convention &
Exhibition Centre
. The site's own navigation now lists PacPrint in Action and PacPrint 2028
as separate items.
What changed, and when
This is a change in what is published rather than a change we were told about. When we
checked on 29 August 2026, the organiser's events page named Visual Impact
2026 as the next show and carried no 2027 or 2028 PacPrint date, and
visualconnections.org.au/pacprint returned a 404. That 404 is still there today.
So is the PacPrint site itself, pacprint.com.au, which remains titled
PacPrint25
and still says in the future tense that
PacPrint 25 will be held in Sydney from 20-23 May, 2025
, at the Sydney Showground.
The arithmetic, which is the part worth noticing
| Event | When | Where | Days |
|---|---|---|---|
| PacPrint 25 | 20-23 May 2025 | Sydney Showground | 4 |
| PacPrint in Action 2027 | 1-2 September 2027 | Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre | 2 |
| PacPrint 2028 | August 2028 | Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre | not published |
Three things follow from the organiser's own dates. The interval from PacPrint 25 to PacPrint 2028 is three years and three months. The event that fills 2027 is half the length of PacPrint 25 and is described as a new format rather than a PacPrint. And both 2027 and 2028 are in Melbourne, where PacPrint 25 was in Sydney.
A 2022 trade report had suggested PacPrint was moving to a two-year cycle alternating Sydney and Melbourne, which would have put a full PacPrint in Melbourne in 2027. We flagged that as unverified at the time because no primary source stated it. On the organiser's published dates, the Melbourne half of that was right and the two-year half was not.
What the organiser has not said
No reason is given for the interval, and we are not going to supply one. The page announces
events; it does not explain scheduling, and nothing on it describes the cycle as having
changed. PacPrint is not cancelled: it has a published 2028 date and a venue.
The 2027 event is additional rather than a replacement, on the organiser's own description of
it as coming in the lead up to PacPrint 2028
.
Exhibitor and sponsorship detail for 2027 is not up yet either. The page says
More info to come soon!
and points would-be exhibitors at a phone number and an email
address.
Why this is dated so precisely. Every claim here is about what the organiser's page said on a given day, because that is the only thing we can stand behind. Our 29 August reading is recorded in our own notes from that day; today's is from the page as fetched on 1 October 2026. If the page changes again, this story is about the two dates, not about the future.
Sources
- Visual Connections, Tradeshow & Events (read 1 October 2026): that the next industry trade show will be PacPrint in Action and Connect Conference 2027 in Melbourne from 1-2 September 2027; the 2027 heading naming PacPrint in Action 2027 in conjunction with Connect Conference 2027 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre; the description of PacPrint in Action as an immersive new-format event introduced in the lead up to PacPrint 2028; the 2028 heading giving PacPrint 2028 in August 2028 at the same venue; the navigation items; and that further information and the exhibitor material are still to come.
- PacPrint, PacPrint25 home page (read 1 October 2026): that the site remains titled PacPrint25 and still states in the future tense that PacPrint 25 will be held in Sydney from 20-23 May 2025 at the Sydney Showground, Sydney Olympic Park, which is the source for the 2025 dates, venue and four-day length.
visualconnections.org.au/pacprint(requested 1 October 2026): returns HTTP 404, unchanged from our 29 August check.- The Print Register's own note of 29 August 2026 recording that no 2027 date was published on any of the organiser's pages at that time, that the organiser then named Visual Impact 2026 as the next show, and that a 2022 trade report's claim of a two-year Sydney and Melbourne alternation was unverified against any primary source.
How we did this. We fetched the organiser's events page, the PacPrint site and the 404 path on 1 October 2026 and read them directly, rather than working from an announcement or a trade report. Quoted wording sits in quotation marks and each quote was checked to appear in a single block of the source. The three-year-and-three-month interval and the comparison of event lengths are our arithmetic on the organiser's published dates, and the 2027 length is two days because the page gives 1-2 September; PacPrint 2028 has no published day count, so the table says so rather than estimating. We have not contacted Visual Connections, and no reason for the scheduling is offered here because none is published.
Exhibiting at either event, or know the scheduling from inside the trade? Tell us and we will check it against the organiser's own pages and log the outcome.