IMTS, the International Manufacturing Technology Show, returned Sept. 9-14 to McCormick Place for its five-day biennial conference and trade show that drew 1,700 exhibiting companies and 89,020 registrants to Chicago. Attendance was up from 86,307 registrants, while exhibiting companies were down from 1,816 at the last show in 2022, according to IMTS data.
In its 97th year, the show, originally called the International Machine Tool Show until 1990, has called the iconic Chicago venue home since 1972, when it occupied only the first floor of the Windy City Convention Center, back when it was called “The Mall.”
McCormick Place no longer has a floor by that name, but it has since exploded in size right next to IMTS, with the show now occupying all four buildings that make up the 1.2 million-square-foot convention center. The 40 million pounds of machinery that were also on site marked a record for the event, said Peter Eelman, chief experience officer for the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), which owns and produces IMTS.
True to form, IMTS 2024 maintained its position as the largest manufacturing technology trade show in the Western Hemisphere, focusing on the latest innovations in manufacturing and automation technologies, particularly in the automotive, aerospace, medical, food and software sectors.
But with its ever-expanding footprint (its peak number of exhibiting companies was just under 2,500 in 2016), event organizers have spent this year doing more than that: curating IMTS in unique ways to ensure that each attendee’s experience can be personalized to their unique goals.
The result: a comprehensive, yet cohesive event that seamlessly blended everything new and noteworthy in the rapidly evolving technology and manufacturing industries with newsworthy spectacle elements that organizers working in any sector could surely implement in their next large-scale event.
Here are the three highlights of IMTS 2024:
1. Fewer meeting rooms in favor of more diverse educational programming and networking opportunities.
Despite the show’s imposing size, there are no more meeting rooms than at other conferences, Eelman said – and perhaps even fewer – because “our conferences are more theoretical.”
So most of the on-site conversations take place directly at exhibitor booths. For example, Eelman said, “For the first time at IMTS, contract manufacturers learned how they can win defense contracts by engaging with exhibitor BlueForge Alliance, the nonprofit defense industrial base integration association that supports the U.S. Navy and is a critical partner to the submarine industrial base.”
“At the same time, conferences continue to multiply,” Eelman added.
Like previous editions, the latest IMTS featured multiple concurrent conferences. New this year, however, was IMTS Elevate LATAM, which “focused on the high-growth markets of Mexico, Latin America and Spain,” Eelman said. He added that there were also two inaugural IMTS Elevate Women Make Manufacturing Move (WMMM) events: a networking reception, and a breakfast and keynote session featuring high-level industry leaders with decision-making authority at NASA, Microsoft and EY, among other notable companies.
Returning conferences: the Supply Chain Forum, Parts Cleaning Conference, Industrial Laser Conference, IMTS Investor Forum and Jobs Shops, which are part of IMTS Elevate’s programs and include “three half-day workshops exclusively designed to provide job shop stakeholders with new and creative opportunities to learn, connect and transform today and tomorrow,” according to the IMTS website.
The event team also uses “sectors” to further segment the exhibitor floor plan, with areas focused on industries such as “manufacturing and laser,” technologies such as “additive manufacturing,” and solutions such as “quality assurance,” to name a few. IMTS 2024 also introduced the all-new “automation sector,” which occupied the entire 700,000-square-foot North Building of McCormick Place.
The educational programming included 68 sessions spread across five different axes this year (Process Innovations, Alternative Processes, Factory Operations, Quality and Inspection and Automation) to allow for a more personalized event itinerary.
2. An expanded Creators Lounge, where attendees could see the video editing process in action.
The IMTS+ Creators Lounge debuted at the 2022 conference as “a destination where manufacturing influencers and content creators come together to connect and share industry stories and insights,” Eelman said.
An impressive statistic from IMTS 2024, Eelman noted: “The creators conducted 65 interviews throughout the week with an exciting rotation of guests and expert hosts (which), coupled with the efforts of the IMTS+ social media team, (produced) 170,000 organic impressions on IMTS official channel posts (#WEAREIMTS) and hundreds of thousands of additional impressions across all IMTS posts.”
The success of the 2024 Creators Lounge could be attributed to the accessibility of its editing area, Eelman suggested. In the past, the guest-only lounge, located in the IMTS+ technology centers powered by Hexagon and Google Cloud, was adjacent to an exclusive editing area, where an on-site crew edited recorded programs in real time. This year, however, the area was open to attendees, making for an exciting spectacle.
Eelman said of the new IMTS Creators Lounge, “This year, instead of closing the editing area, we opened it up and allowed attendees to watch the editing team do their work in one half of the lounge, while the interview took place in the other half. This gave a sense of activity and action that helped draw a crowd to the booth. Not only did people gather or stop to listen to some of the interviews, but they were also mesmerized by the live production team.”
3. A complete program for future generations.
There is no doubt that IMTS has proven its value to emerging manufacturing talent with its 2024 show, with some 20,000 students and faculty attending this year’s event. Student support has become a staple of the conference since IMTS first hosted a student event in 1998.
“The manufacturing sector has a significant gap between the number of workers it has and the number of workers it needs,” Eelman said, explaining why his organization is focusing on what is now known as the Smartforce Student Summit.
“This is a unique opportunity for young people to connect with a profession that is in high need while preparing for a career that doesn’t necessarily require a four-year college degree,” Eelman added of the program, which was co-produced with AMT for the first time this year. It has also been made more youth-friendly by moving to the second level of the site’s East Building, a smart move given that it is closer to the student bus drop-off and pick-up point at McCormick Place.
The Summit is packed with exhibits and hands-on demonstrations designed to inspire young people to pursue careers in manufacturing and STEM fields.
The next IMTS will return to McCormick Place from September 14-19, 2026.
Photos courtesy of the Association for Manufacturing Technology
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