Celebrating 25 years of inception along with their biennial Conference
themed, "Emerging Beyond Boundaries", Label Manufacturers
Association of India LMAI, delivered value!
700 plus delegates were awestruck
attending the seventh LMAI conference at
the picturesque and astounding venue, The Fairmont Palace Udaipur from 3rd
to 6th July 2025. All 300 rooms at the property were booked at the
venue Hotel and additionally 60 rooms were booked in Hotel Aurika with a total of 360 rooms. 35
sponsors including some of the most renowned names in the world for the label
manufacturing industry supported the event. Kurz was the platinum sponsor
and Avery Dennison the elite sponsor besides many others. Fairmont Udaipur
Palace is an alluring destination to discover the charm of Udaipur, seamlessly
blending timeless tradition with modern elegance, featuring a historic
stepwell, one of Rajasthan's largest ballrooms and exclusive events pool with
jacuzzi and amphitheater. Nestled in the Aravalli Hills, it offered easy access
to the city's top attractions and cultural landmarks. In view of the author who
has travelled the world over for diverse label events,
“This three nights-four
days event, packed with amazing presentations and entertainment, was perhaps
the biggest label event in the world”!
Traditional Rajasthani welcome awaited the delegates arriving
by road rail and air. Local folk dancers, drums, music, garlands, traditional aarti
and special beverages were a part of
the
welcome on arrival while being ushered into the hotel. Excellent arrangements
executed for their arrival and meticulous planning made it stress free checking-in
for all guests.
The conference was officially thrown open at 6PM on the 3rd
of July 2025. The inaugural evening was themed patriotic, so the board of
directors (BOD) were all wearing the Modi jackets and tricolor stoles around
their necks.
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| Rajesh Chadha President LMAI |
The welcome note was delivered by the
LMAI President Rajesh Chadha.
The conference agenda information was given by the two conference Chairmen Manish Desai and Jaideep Singh.
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| Jaideep Singh |
Manish Desai
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| Pradeep Saroha |
Pradeep Saroha events director of Labelexpo India came
onstage to apprise the audience about the upcoming Labelexpo
Europe.
This was followed by Raveendran
Selvarajan, Managing Director of Seljegat Printers Pvt.Ltd. being conferred the
fourth LMAI lifetime contribution award.
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| Author and Surendra Kapur Founder President |
It was a pleasant surprise that after
a lapse of few years the LMAI founder president Surendra Kapur came to attend
the conference.
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| Stephane Royere KURZ |
After a presentation by
Stephane Royere from platinum sponsors Kurz, all the event sponsors were
felicitated.
Thereafter the Welcome night themed “Saar’e Jahan Se achha”, was
thrown open for cocktails, dinner and entertainment by Mohit Verma and troupe.
The delegates, eager to party, hit the dance floor until late in the evening.
When asked to wrap up so that they are back in time for the presentations next
day, happy people were heard saying, “Abhi toh party shuru huyee hai!” Means,
the party has just begun.
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| Jitesh Mehta |
The second day commenced with another presentation by Stephane
Royere, Head of business area packaging and print, international sales and
marketing, of Kurz India and followed by one from Jitesh Mehta senior Director
LPM Avery Dennison India.
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| Natasha Jaichandra |
The vibrant young girl Natasha Jaichandra director VEEPEE graphics enthralled the audience speaking on the ECG (expanded colour gamut).
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| Thomas Schweizer Heidelberg Gallus |
After that followed an array of great presentations. Notable
amongst them were from Appadurai country head of HP Indigo, Thomas Schweizer
Global head of sales at Heidelberg Gallus.
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| Ranesh Bajaj of Vinsak with Naoki Ogawa |
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| Gourav Roy FIG with Florian Stroe of Mark Andy |
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| Hostess Lekha and LaBella |
A huge attraction was LaBella! She is an AI robot, she added glamour in leading delegates to wherever they wished to go!
Pawandeep Sahni, Managing Director of OMET India Private Limited made a high
powered and energetic presentation pulling the audience into attention and
becoming interactive. The presentation can be viewed on YouTube https://youtu.be/cVtHUPa-OGo?feature=shared Click the image on the left to watch the full presentation.
The preplanned motivational speaker’s slot had to be
altered to the next day as Gaurav Arya, who was supposed to deliver the
motivational speech, could not reach due to flight cancellations. The LMAI
leadership must be commended for arranging yet another speaker in a short time.
Anand Ranganathan, a renowned speaker, agreed to fly in on the next day that was final day and address
the label fraternity.
Once all the presentations were done for the day, it was
time for networking, dinner and a musical evening that beckoned the guests to
go on to the stage, dance and party.
The label industry continues to evolve, emerging beyond boundaries.
The wet glue or glue applied labels have continued to transform initially to self-adhesive
labels, converted on narrow web label presses and register a high growth rate to
reach more than 50% of all the labels produced in India. Later the narrow web
converting started to expand owing to evolution and labels, moved into diverse
tangents. To dwell on the impact of this expansion and the modalities involved,
the first program on the 3rd day was a panel discussion moderated by
the author Harveer Sahni and titled, “Narrow web label converting expanding
to diverse applications". The panelists were leading Indian printers in
narrow web converting, Priyata Raghavan Deputy CEO of Sai Packaging, Mehzabin
Nair Managing Director Skanem India, Ankit Gupta Jt. Managing Director Holostik
Limited, Hemanth Paruchuri director Pragati Pack, Denver Annunciation Director
Janus International and Stephane Royere of Kurz India. The impact and future of
this expansion was discussed at length in the panel.
The panel discussion was
followed by a very interesting and confident presentation for Weigang by the young
daughter of LMAI founder Amit Sheth.
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| Motivational Speaker Anand Ranganathan |
More presentations followed until
noon after which the motivational speaker Anand Ranganathan came onstage to deliver his speech. Following
this a round table interaction was arranged for all sponsors to interact with
printers. Each sponsor was given a table on which printers would visit in
batches of six each to enable sponsors the opportunity to interact with their
customers.
The day culminated in a gala evening hosted by Kurz India. The dress
code was “Men in Black” and for ladies it was “Glitter” to add shimmer to the
vibrant evening started with an amazing
laser show by special artists.
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| The part titled "Gauardians of Empire" |
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| Author with Stephane Royre |
After
Jitender Pal Singh CEO of Kurz India addressed the gathering, LMAI past president
Vivek Kapoor delivered a vote of thanks.
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| Asees Kaur |
It was then time for the celebrity
performer Asees Kaur to add fun to the entertainment and prompt the delegates
to hit the bar and the dance floor enjoying until late in the night or the wee
hours of morning.
All good things come to an end, leaving nostalgic memories of
fellowship, togetherness, networking, knowledge delivery and entertainment. It
was time to go back home with perfect departures arranged so that there are no
inconveniences. This covering of the
event would be incomplete without appreciating the amazing venue overlooking lush
green hills all around, the weather was fantastic, the hotel staff was hospitable
in the true sense of the word.
The general Manager Vishrut Gupta was always
around with his team responding to guests personally and as for the food, kudos
to Amitesh Virdi the culinary director and his team who did a wonderful job
delivering taste.
The events organizing company led by the beautiful Hemal Bhagwat
created precision in every aspect of the stay from arrival to departure.
Delegates have been showering praise ever since.
The LMAI board of directors need to congratulate themselves
for having created and delivered this mind-boggling big event, bigger and
better than the best in the world. The icing on the cake is wonderful appreciations
pouring in from delegates and sponsors. It is an encouragement to imagine and
plan more for the next conference!
Written by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi July 2025
More Images from the conference:
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| Amit and Rupa Sheth |
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| Party time |
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| LMAI BOD |
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| Jaichandra, Nalani and Mehzabin |
Manish Desai
