 And it shows that we turn to First this week with a preview of Pro Food Tech, which takes place at McCormick Place in Chicago from March 26th to 28th. It's the only event in North America focused exclusively on all the food and beverage sectors, with 7,000 processing professionals and 450 global suppliers with booths covering 150,000 square feet of exhibit floor. Whole lot of walking, but at least it gets some exercise in. In preview of the show, I spoke with Laura Thompson, Senior Director of Expositions at one of the show's organizers, PMMI, the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, and Neil Moran, Senior Vice President, Finance, Administration and Trade Show at IDFA. I first asked Laura for a little bit of background about the show. We actually launched the show in 2017 with a partnership with IDFA, called MESA, who organizes the Inuga show and PMMI. So this show this year will actually be our second edition. We got together to launch it because we felt there wasn't really a show in the marketplace that covered all industries. What's great about Pro Food Tech is I know you're focused on dairy in this conversation today, but we really do touch on solutions for the entire food and beverage processing industry. So we're looking forward to it. We're going to have about 400 exhibiting companies at the show providing processing solutions, ingredients for everything from dairy, baking and snacks, confectionery, fruits and vegetables, pet food, etc. So what's the involvement from the IDFA's perspective? We're actually a partner along with PMMI and Col Messe. This show kind of represents a real opportunity for us to get involved with two trade show powerhouses and use our expertise with conference programming and educational discussions to really round out the show. So we look at this as an opportunity to become a full-fledged partner with the dairy industry in the show. IDFA, actually, we host a dairy pavilion in the show. It's a focus-targeted area on the show floor so attendees can easily come and find the dairy solutions that they need. Sure. That was going to be one of my questions if you could give me a bit more background as to what that involves, so what the dairy section is. It's about 50,000 square feet, which is comparable to what it was in the initial show. And the pavilion, you know, from our way of thinking since we're the dairy people, we thought it was a tremendously successful way to present dairy. It allowed for a consolidation of an awful lot of dairy-specific exhibitors who had solutions and provided networking opportunities for not only all the attendees, but specifically for IDFA's members and a lot of other dairy stakeholders. So it worked out really well in the first show. The one nice change we've made from the first show in terms of the educational component is we have those zones, the disruption, the innovation in the impact zone on the show floor, and they're closely embedded in the dairy part of it. So it's a good opportunity. And the companies that are coming to the show, would they be national or international? Companies come from all over the world. Most of the companies that are the real highlights of the show to me are U.S.-based companies or U.S.-based subsidiaries of foreign companies. So it's a nice, you know, group of people that are U.S.-based, whether they're a foreign company or whether they're a domestic company. And visitors, would that be the same thing, primarily U.S.? For visitors, yes. Again, they tend to be from, you know, multinational companies, but they come from all industries. Okay, and how many visitors did you have last time and how many are you expecting this time? We're expecting around 7,000 visitors. We had around 6,500 last time. That's going in the right direction, then. Oh, yes, definitely. Actually, registration is up. We've got about three times the number of people registered this time as we had previously. So, you know, hopefully we exceed our attendance goals if we keep tracking in this direction. And it's more than just a show in terms of floor space and exhibitors. There's all kinds of other things going on as well. Could you let me know what some of those are? Neil has the three stages that are on the show floor that he can give a little bit more details on. One thing that we're really focusing on this year is free show floor education. We found with all of our shows, you know, people don't necessarily want to leave the show floor, go commit to a long conference program. They want to stay, get good information in a short amount of time, and then maximize their time on the show floor. So, we have several stages that offer free show floor education. We have our Packaging and Processing Women's Leadership Network, who will be hosting a breakfast. That organization we've seen grow tremendously over the years. We have our Pro Food World magazine is putting on our sustainability and excellence awards as well as manufacturing innovation awards. We have the Cold Pressure Council, who's going to be organizing their conference at the show. In addition to the help from our international partners, we have some international civilians who will be at the show. We have civilians from China, France, India, and Taiwan. We have a lot going on. We know people are making an effort to come to the show and we want to make sure that when they're there, they get access to not only the exhibitors on the show floor, but as well as this free education. So, Neil can talk a little bit about the three stages that we have. Sure. And the one thing that Laura alluded to was the fact that we've managed to get all the zones, all the educational sessions onto the show floor. So, not only are the attendees happier to be able to be involved on the floor and to take time out and just go to the things they'd like to learn about, but also the exhibitors are happy to make sure that the attendees stay on the floor as long as possible. So, it's a nice combination that makes both parties happy and adds for a much more, I think, exciting and interactive part of the show. When we were trying to decide how to have the educational sessions, we decided that the best thing to do was to try to break it up into three different categories because each one of the categories has a little bit different to offer. In the impact zone, we're going to have interactive discussions that are really, you know, people have said to us, you know, we'd like to learn more about this or we'd like to hear something about, you know, this specific topic or something that's changing that we'd like to get some information on. So, we've incorporated those into the impact zone. The innovation zones are demonstrations about the, some of the different products and offerings that the exhibitors have. And again, they answer questions about technical issues as well as, you know, things like food safety, you know, the trends in consumer practices, those types of things. One of the things we're really happy with is the disruption zone because there are so many different disruptive technologies, disruptive services, disruptive processes that are going on throughout the business world, not just in, you know, the food and beverage part of the world, but every day, everywhere you look, you see these changes. And it's incredible the amount of changes that are being initiated by these kinds of things. So, you know, whether it's in the dairy industry in particular, there's an awful lot of changes that are being driven by consumer demand, whether it's the type of product, the type of way that people can, you know, buy and eat product, whether it's online, the grab and go kind of thing, but there's just consumer driven changes that are being innovated by, you know, our members and other people in the trade to, I think, the mutual benefit of our members and also for the consumers. So that's something that we're going to stress and make sure that people are aware of all the different impact things that are going on throughout the industry. One of the things that PMI is really focusing on this year is education, is introducing people to the industry and helping our members as well as the industry as a whole find qualified workers. So, at the show, we are going to have a career link, which is essentially a career fair to get students and veterans who are looking for careers in packaging and processing in touch with potential employers. We also are working with local high school robotics teams and bringing them in as part of our future innovators robotics showcase. And then we also have several partner schools, technical universities that will be at the show as well. Our goal is to get students to the show so they can, we always find it's much more exciting for them to come, see everything in action. We have some industry experts who actually take them around the show floor to show them specifics and teach them a little bit about the industry. So that's a very important topic. So it's about 25 different events in one than with the job fair as well. Yes, I know. There is a lot going on. It seems like it's very trend and innovation oriented, which is a good thing because it keeps it very current. Well, and that's one of the key points for, you know, why people attend when we do the post-show survey. They know that, you know, networking access to people who are, you know, able to provide solutions to their, you know, operating requirements. And then also the innovations. People are always looking for innovations. Clearly yours is more than just a trade show with exhibitors. There's all kinds of educational components and other things involved. How do you get that balance right? Well, I think, you know, working with our two partners, there are a tremendous number of innovations in equipment, packaging technologies, processing technologies. But also they're just, you know, business-to-business kind of discussions that people really are looking forward to. I mean, they know that some of the, you know, the best and the brightest people are going to be at the show either as exhibitors or as attendees. So they have the opportunity to be involved in those discussions and to take something away that they'll take back to their companies and be able to either increase efficiencies, increase productions, or increase the bottom line. That's a key element of the show that, you know, the three partners have really worked towards trying to achieve. For us, I think one of the main goals, as Neil said for this show, is we really want to make it a fully encompassing experience for the attendees. And, you know, people want to come and they want to see the machinery in action, which is something that we really pride ourselves on in all of our shows, is that you can come, you can actually see the machines, touch the machines, talk to the technicians. But in addition to that, adding in this education component on the show floor really helps people give them that background, that additional education in addition to being able to see everything in action. So it's been great that the partnership that we have both with IDFA and Colmessa and being able to draw from each of the groups experience, whether it's the industry experience or show organizing experience, has really helped us in putting together this all-encompassing event. Do you do post-event surveys and how important are those in shaping the show? Absolutely. We ask everybody, we confine about their experience at the show, both from the exhibitors and the attendees. And for all of our shows, it's innovation, seeing the new technologies, learning about the industry, as well as the networking component. One of the ways that we've managed to develop different parts of pro-food tech is based on what the input is from the attendees and the exhibitors. So we're constantly changing the show to try to make it more attractive and make the ROI better for both parties so that they get what they want out of it and they have input into what goes into it. So it's a nice collaboration with our stakeholders at the same time. Is there still room for more exhibitors and more delegates if they're interested in attending? Yes, we do have room for more exhibiting companies. We actually recently expanded the Dairy Pavilion. And as far as attending, the registration price is $30 until March 1. So we recommend people register before the 1 to get the discounted registration as well as receive their badge in the mail before the show. And there's all kinds of information on the show and how to register on the website as well. Absolutely, yes. I recommend going to profoodtech.com. Potential attendees can go to the website. They have the ability to search by keyword, by product category, and kind of see exactly who will be there to fit their specific needs.