PACK EXPO 2016 Sets Records
- Published: November 18, 2016
RESTON, VA | On the 60th Anniversary of its debut, PACK EXPO International and the co-located Pharma EXPO served as the world’s largest and most comprehensive processing and packaging show in 2016, reports show owner and producer organizer PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. (http://www.pmmimediagroup.com) Held November 6–9 at Chicago’s McCormick Place, the event featured a record-breaking 2,512 exhibitors spread over an unprecedented 1.25 million net sq ft of exhibit space and more than 47,000 targeted buyers. 
“Exhibitors reported that not only were leads up, but the quality of the attendees continues to grow,” says Jim Pittas, senior VP of PMMI. “A full audit of the event will be forthcoming, but all initial reports from exhibitors and attendees clearly show PACK EXPO International and Pharma EXPO 2016 was an overwhelming success.”
Exhibitors and exhibit space were not the only records broken. In no previous year has PACK EXPO received as many endorsements as this year with the largest ever Partner Program including 31 associations. International pavilion organizers came from around the globe, including Argentina, Bavaria, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Taiwan.
The education offerings for PACK EXPO were also the largest in the history of the PACK EXPO portfolio of trade shows. The three Innovation Stages at PACK EXPO and one at Pharma EXPO offered free on-floor education, while The Pharma EXPO Conference Program, produced by International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineering, (ISPE) provided three topic tracks covering manufacturing operations, compliance trends, and pharmaceutical packaging.
Organizers say one particularly well-received new addition to PACK EXPO was the NextGEN Networking Fair, the event that connected both supplier companies and consumer goods manufacturers with student talent in the Education and Workforce Development Pavilion. Fourteen teams of students from ten partner schools also participated in the Amazing Packaging Race, sponsored by ASCO. A team made up of undergrads from Indiana State University, Cal Poly, Virginia Tech, and Rutgers University took home iPads for finishing first in the seventh annual competition. ASCO also awarded $5,000 academic scholarships to Nathaniel Weger, a junior at the University of Iowa, and Quinnlan Sweeney, a junior at Clemson University.
PMMI also hosted the 6th annual PACK gives BACK featuring the magic and comedy act of Penn and Teller. The sold-out event, sponsored by co-title sponsors Rockwell Automation and DuPont and Bronze sponsor Massman Automation Designs had over 1,400 attendees. A portion of the proceeds will benefit No Greater Sacrifice (NGS), a nonprofit organization providing educational scholarships to the children of wounded and fallen military.
“We took the band Chicago to Las Vegas last year, so we thought we should bring a little Las Vegas to Chicago this year and raised money for a great cause,” says Pittas. “Thank you to the sponsors and all those who attended and donated to NGS.”
