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.
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.
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.
It was a pleasant surprise that after a lapse of few years the LMAI founder president Surendra Kapur came to attend the conference.
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.
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.
The vibrant young girl Natasha Jaichandra director VEEPEE graphics enthralled the audience speaking on the ECG (expanded colour gamut).
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.
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.
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.
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.
After Jitender Pal Singh CEO of Kurz India addressed the gathering, LMAI past president Vivek Kapoor delivered a vote of thanks.
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
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