Published 10/28/2022

Formnext Chicago secures premier exhibitors

The newly announced additive manufacturing show, Formnext Chicago, will take place at McCormick Place in spring 2025.

Senior Managing Editor, CompositesWorld and Products Finishing

The organizers of Formnext Chicago announce that they have secured letters of intent from 20 companies to exhibit at Formnext Chicago, to be held April 8-10, 2025, at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois. These companies are said to represent some of the world’s premier providers of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, as well as startup companies launching new materials solutions. Confirmed exhibitors include EOS, Desktop Metal, Autodesk, HP, Zeiss, Mazak, Markforged, 3DEO, 3D Systems, Oqton, Baker Industries, Dyndrite, Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies, Massivit 3D, nTopology, Velo3D, Carpenter Technology, Trumpf, Ingersoll Machine Tools and America Makes.

“Formnext Chicago will truly capture the entire spectrum of AM-related technologies, creating a unique experience at a familiar destination,” Douglas K. Woods, president of The Association For Manufacturing Technology (AMT, McLean, Va., U.S.), says. “The initial exhibiting companies represent an additive value chain that starts with materials, moves through design and control software, production and post-production equipment, service providers and metrology.”

“Our team had direct conversations with many of the top additive suppliers in the world at IMTS,” Rick Kline Jr., president of Gardner Business Media (GBM, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.), the parent company to CompositesWorld, adds. “And the feedback we received across the board was extremely positive. People are excited about the breadth and depth of audience reach and technical understanding that our three organizations [Mesago Messe Frankfurt GmbH, AMT and GBM] can bring together.”

The group (Mesago Messe Frankfurt GmbH, AMT and Gardner Business Media) invites other organizations to participate in Formnext Chicago.

Formnext is reported to be the premier industrial AM trade show in the world. The 2019 event featured 852 exhibitors and attracted 34,532 visitors; the November 2022 alone show has more than 760 exhibitors. Formnext Chicago resulted when Mesago Messe Frankfurt GmbH, the organizers of Formnext, cooperated with AMT and GBM, created a unique partnership beneficiary for the whole additive and manufacturing industry in the North American market.

“EOS has been engaged with both Formnext, AMT and GBM for many years. The combined strengths of these three organizations brings exceptional value to the additive manufacturing industry and stimulates further peer-to-peer engagement,” Glynn Fletcher, president of EOS North America, shares.

According to Petra Haarburger, president, board of management of Mesago Messe Frankfurt, the group invites other organizations to participate in Formnext Chicago, as the goal is to build a coalition of leaders with broad appeal to the additive and manufacturing communities.

In addition to Formnext Chicago in 2025, the partnership has launched the Formnext Forum Austin (Aug. 28-30, 2023) and the Formnext Forum co-located at IMTS 2024. The forums offer intimate and immersive learning experiences for attendees and are built around a robust conference schedule with an emphasis on sharing ideas and technology advancements in production 3D printing.

Woods notes that there are 12 million people directly connected to the manufacturing industry in the U.S. “As a still-evolving industry, much of the industrial manufacturing community is just beginning to explore and fully understand the production benefits of AM,” he says. “The U.S.-based Formnext events create more opportunities for jobs shops, OEMs, startups and service providers. Formnext Chicago will expose them to different parts of the supply chain and different parts of the innovation cycle so that they can learn how to apply AM tech to their existing business and create new opportunities.”