Visitor registration is now open for Advanced Engineering, the UK’s largest annual gathering of engineering and manufacturing professionals. Now in its 14th year, this year’s show comes with a fresh and future-focused rebrand, removing the previous show zones from its exhibition floor and introducing a main stage for the event’s well-attended forums.
Advanced Engineering, taking place on November 1 and 2 at the NEC, Birmingham, was previously divided into several zones. However, in order to meet the future demands of the engineering and manufacturing sectors, the show has been re-engineered to encourage even more cross-industry collaboration.
The organisers understood that this layout felt limiting for exhibitors, and that visitors in general walked the entire show floor, regardless of their specific industry. This year, the long-established composite zone will remain, but the automotive, aerospace and connected manufacturing zones will be removed. However, these sectors will still have a strong presence at the event, with the industry-specific forums remaining. There will also be a main, central stage on this year’s floor plan where discussions about key challenges in the industry will be discussed.
“Making these changes wasn’t an easy or a quick decision,” explained Alison Willis, director of Easyfairs, the organiser of Advanced Engineering. We spoke to over 200 exhibitors, visitors and speakers to make sure that any changes made were future-proof and reflective of all stakeholders. We realised that many of the issues that our exhibitors and visitors are facing align, no matter what sector they’re from. Take sustainability as an example — we wanted to make sure that our floor plan gave attendees the best opportunity of sharing ideas and solutions to challenges like this.
“Advanced Engineering has expanded greatly over the years, starting as a specific aerospace event 14 years ago. 2023 felt like the right time to break down the walls that separated our exhibitors to fully encourage collaboration across industries and to prepare the show for a new era of manufacturing and engineering,” concluded Willis.
To ensure that visitors and exhibitors can still easily find relevant contacts, Advanced Engineering exhibitors will now be categorised by the services, products and solutions offered. They will have the opportunity to highlight all of the sectors they work in, removing any limitations created by the specific show zones. As well as encouraging visitors from the show’s established sectors like aerospace, space, automotive and composites to attend, Advanced Engineering hopes to attracted visitors from newer sectors, like marine, security, rail, energy, sports and leisure, and medical.
It’s clear to see why this year’s expanded floor plan is quickly filling up. One of last year’s exhibitors, George Chetwood, Business Development Manager at Cognitiv Spark, said, “The show has been great — we’ve met so many new people and had great conversations. We’ve met clients that we’ve already been in talks with and have advanced those conversations. Our director has secured a spot next year, so we’ll be back then.”
Another, Lee Brent, Sales Manager for Southwest Fabrications, commented, “This is our first year exhibiting at Advanced Engineering but it will not be our last. After a friendly and helpful team helped us decide on our stand in the most appropriate location, we have seen a tremendous amount of visitors flow through our stand, with over 100 individual companies interested in the products and services we offer. We have been so pleased with our experience and look forward to exhibiting for many years to come.”
In 2023, Advanced Engineering will welcome back a full speaker programme with representatives from some of the leading companies in UK manufacturing. Last year, attendees were treated to talks from leading industry figures from companies like Siemens, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Make UK, Rolls-Royce and Airbus. As always, attendees will be able to access all of these talks free of charge, totaling around 50 hours of free CPD accredited learning.
To secure your visitor pass, see a current exhibitor list and check out the growing list of confirmed speakers, visit the Advanced Engineering website — advancedengineeringuk.com.
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