The upcoming 2027 Long Beach, California, Impressions Expo decorated-apparel industry trade show set to take place Jan. 21-23 is on track to be yet another outstanding one, with hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of attendees coming in from the around the world. Watch this space for all the information you need to prepare for and make the most of this year’s event.
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Impressions Magazine/Expo Now Part of Global B2B Events Company Forge
Impressions magazine and Impressions Expo have a new parent company, Forge, a product of the recent merger between the Impressions brand’s former parent company, Emerald, and fellow media/trade show company Questex LLC. The move follows Apollo-managed funds’ acquisition of the two companies this past July.
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Special Report: The State of Apparel Decorating in 2026
Flexibility, as was fully evident at the first two Impressions Expos of the year in Long Beach, California, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, is key to today’s decorated apparel industry. Adapt or die, both in the years to come and the here and now. The good news is the industry offers plenty of means of doing so.
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2026 Impressions Industry Impact (III) Awards Winners!
In what is now the third year of our Impressions Industry Impact (III) Awards it’s interesting to see the degree to which some things have changed and some things haven’t. On the one hand, one of the things that hasn’t changed is the importance of direct-to-film, or DTF, an aspect of the decorated-apparel industry that continues to grow by leaps and bounds. On the other, something that has very much changed is the importance of print-on-demand (POD) and the technology facilitating it. Then, of course, there’s the one thing that never changes—the creativity and innovation that are so integral to what the decorated-apparel industry is all about.
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Another Outstanding Impressions Expo in Long Beach, California
Organizers of last week’s 2026 Impressions Expo in Long Beach, California, had long known the event was on track to be another great one, if for no other reason than the number of exhibitors scheduled to take part—310 companies reserving an incredible 116,000-square-feet of floor space in all. The show itself, though, didn’t just meet expectations, it blew them away, with over 10,000 attendees making the trek to the Long Beach Convention Center to check out the latest the industry has to offer decorators of all kinds.
