Formnext announces record bookings, refreshes conference
March 24, 2023
The organiser of Formnext, Mesago Messe Frankfurt, has announced that its 2023 event has the highest number of exhibitor registrations to date, reflecting the industry’s continued momentum. At the end of February, over 550 companies had signed up to attend the trade show, 62% of them from outside Germany. In order to meet this increase, the event will feature a range of specialised offerings.
Those already registered to exhibit include Additive Industries, Arburg, BigRep, Carbon, DMG Mori, Dyemansion, Dyndrite, EOS, EPlus, Farsoon, Formlabs, GE Additive, GKN Sinter Metals Components, Hage 3D, Hexagon, HP, Keyence, Markforged, Massivit, Nexa3D, Open Mind, Prima Additive, Renishaw, Ricoh, Roboze, Rösler, Sandvik Additive Manufacturing, Shining 3D, Siemens, Sisma, SLM Solutions, Stratasys, Trumpf, Velo3D, Voxeljet, and Xjet.
In addition to these, numerous new companies and renowned international groups along the entire process chain will showcase what they do, including BASF, Bosch, Evonik, Höganäs, Linde, Nikon, Oerlikon, and Praxair. Contract manufacturers specialising in Additive Manufacturing are often the entry point for users into the technology. So far, FKM Sintertechnik, Jabil, Materialise, Promod Prototypenzentrum, and Quickparts have already registered.
“The entire industry is developing at a breathtaking pace and offers enormous growth opportunities, both for established companies as well as for start-ups and SMEs that are discovering additive manufacturing for themselves,” stated Sascha F Wenzler, vice president, Mesago Messe Frankfurt GmbH. “The number of suppliers using Formnext to successfully establish and expand their offerings around additive manufacturing and along the process chain is growing all the time.”
As well as being a trade fair, the Formnext brand also offers a range of services beyond the show floor, including a magazine and Formnext.TV, which reports live from the trade fair and provides reports throughout the year. The AM Field Guide offers an introduction and outlines the essential features of individual AM processes, whilst the successful Discover3Dprinting seminars are said to be a valuable opportunity for companies considering adding industrial AM to their production portfolio.
“The AM industry is innovative, and developments are moving so fast that ongoing discussion is vital,” explained Wenzler. “By incorporating additive technologies into the design and construction of components and products, we can identify more and more profitable additive manufacturing applications. A lively and active industry dialog accelerates this process.”
Petra Haarburger, president at Mesago Messe Frankfurt, added, “We organise highly specialised technology trade fairs and therefore know the various stakeholders in our industries very well. With events like Formnext, we fulfil the mission of bringing together the key stakeholders to sustainably connect technology, business, and community. By offering additional formats, we underline our determination to accomplish this goal on a year-round basis and support the AM sector as a specialist partner in addition to the trade fair.”
A refreshed conference strategy
At the same time, Formnext has also refined the way its conferencing programme is organised. For the first time, this year’s conference programme will be held across three different stages in the exhibition halls. The different focus areas cover key AM trends and applications as well as exhibitors’ technologies and innovations in an effort to provide a convenient and efficient way to help visitors to find the product or service they are looking for. This is hoped to enable Formnext to further promote important dialog between technology providers and users and make the content publicly available to all stakeholders in the halls.
The Industry Stage focuses on topical, seminal issues such as sustainability and digitisation. However, the agenda also includes new business opportunities as well as valuable insights into specific areas such as the start-up and funding world. The industry stage program, with its focus on panel discussions and interviews, will be broadcast live on Formnext.TV.
On each day of the trade show, the application stage will showcase a variety of exciting applications from different industries – such as mechanical and plant engineering, the automotive industry, aerospace, medical technology, electrical engineering, tool and die making, and automation. This will shed light on the entire process chain for each industry.
Innovations from Formnext exhibitors are shown on the technology stage. On each day of the show, there will be a morning and afternoon session in which innovations from the fields of materials, pre-processing, AM production, and post-processing will be presented and discussed.
The call for speakers for the conference programme is expected to start at the beginning of April.
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