📋 Key facts in 30 seconds
✓FABTECH is North America's largest trade show for metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing, co-organised by SME, FMA, AWS, PMA and CCAI.
✓FABTECH 2027: 13 to 16 September 2027, McCormick Place, Chicago (official dates).
✓FABTECH 2026 has just closed: 21 to 23 October 2026 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, with 1,400+ exhibitors and around 31,000 expected attendees.
✓Registration: show-floor access was free when registering before the deadline in 2026, then $50; conference sessions are ticketed separately.
✓The booth is your real budget: from €600/m² modular, €600 to €1,500/m² custom, plus Chicago union labour, drayage and rigging for heavy machines.
What we do: Decore Studio Events designs and builds custom exhibition stands for exhibitors. We do not sell floor space or entry tickets: to book a space or a badge, contact the show organiser.
What is FABTECH? 🏭
FABTECH is the largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing trade show in North America. It is co-organised by five industry associations: SME, FMA (Fabricators & Manufacturers Association), AWS (American Welding Society), PMA (Precision Metalforming Association) and CCAI (Chemical Coaters Association International).
The show alternates between cities: Chicago in odd years (McCormick Place) and Orlando, Atlanta or Las Vegas in even years. Press cutting, laser cutting, bending, stamping, tube and pipe, welding automation, robotics, additive manufacturing, finishing and software all run live on the floor. Sister shows exist in Mexico (FABTECH Mexico, Monterrey, 4 to 6 May 2027) and Canada.
FABTECH 2027 dates and location 📌
| Edition | Dates | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| <strong>FABTECH 2027</strong> | <strong>Monday 13 to Thursday 16 September 2027</strong> | <strong>McCormick Place</strong>, 2301 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Chicago, Illinois |
| FABTECH 2026 | 21 to 23 October 2026 | Las Vegas Convention Center, 3150 Paradise Road, Las Vegas, Nevada |
| FABTECH 2025 | 8 to 11 September 2025 | McCormick Place, Chicago |
| FABTECH Mexico 2027 | 4 to 6 May 2027 | Monterrey, Nuevo León |
The 2027 dates are official: the organiser announced Chicago, 13 to 16 September 2027, when closing the Las Vegas edition. Opening hours are published in the exhibitor manual; in 2026 third-party guides listed 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on the first days and an earlier close on the last day. We will update this page when the 2027 hours are confirmed.
FABTECH 2026 Las Vegas: what happened
FABTECH 2026 ran from 21 to 23 October 2026 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the show's first Las Vegas edition in about a decade, with more than 1,400 exhibitors across some 40 product categories and around 31,000 expected attendees. Searches for "fabtech 2026 dates and location" keep running all year: if you are planning from that edition, the next stop is Chicago in September 2027.
Getting to McCormick Place
- Airports: O'Hare (ORD) about 45 minutes by taxi, Midway (MDW) about 25 minutes.
- Train: Metra Electric stops at McCormick Place station, four minutes from Millennium Station downtown.
- Hotels: the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place and Marriott Marquis Chicago are connected to the halls; South Loop and downtown hotels are 10 to 15 minutes away.
FABTECH tickets and registration 🎫
FABTECH is a trade show for industry professionals. Registration is handled online by the organiser on fabtechexpo.com. In 2026, show-floor access was free for anyone registering before the deadline and $50 afterwards, online or on site. Conference sessions (welding, forming, finishing, management tracks) are ticketed separately.
- Exhibitor badges are allocated per booth through the exhibitor portal, in proportion to the booth size.
- International visitors are welcome; plan ESTA or visa formalities early, the badge does not replace them.
- Students and educators benefit from specific programmes announced by the organiser each edition.
Registering early is not only about the fee. The exhibitor list, floor plan and session schedule open months before the show: use them to book meetings with the buyers you want on your booth, instead of waiting for them to walk by.
Choose the right FABTECH booth in 1 min 🧭
A 10 x 10 ft inline booth with a display case, a 30 x 30 ft island with a running press brake or a double-deck booth with meeting rooms over the demo floor are three different projects. Three questions point you to the right format.
Who exhibits at FABTECH? 🔩
The 2026 edition gathered more than 1,400 exhibitors across some 40 product categories. Chicago editions are traditionally the largest. Visitors are job shops, OEMs, contract manufacturers, fabricators and welders who come to compare machines side by side and to buy.
- Forming and fabricating: press brakes, laser and plasma cutting, punching, tube and pipe, coil processing.
- Welding: power sources, consumables, welding automation and cobots, safety and fume extraction.
- Finishing: powder coating, paint lines, pretreatment, abrasives.
- Automation and software: robotics, material handling, nesting, MES and quoting software, additive manufacturing.
- Tooling and consumables: dies, blades, lubricants, measuring and inspection.
Floor plan and booth sizes
The FABTECH floor plan is published by the organiser a few months before each edition, by pavilion (forming and fabricating, welding, finishing, tube and pipe, additive) with the exhibitor list searchable by product category. Spaces start at 10 x 10 ft (about 9 m²) inline and go up to islands of several hundred square metres for machine builders.
A live demonstration is the norm on the FABTECH floor. Your booth therefore has to handle machine weight, power supply, compressed air, fume extraction and safety perimeters as much as branding. That is where the booth builder earns its fee.
How much does a FABTECH booth cost? 💶
| Budget line | Indicative cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Booth space (organiser) | Sold per square foot, rate on request | Inline, corner or island; early booking during the previous show gets the best locations |
| Modular booth | From <strong>€600/m²</strong> | Reusable system with graphics and lighting, ideal for a first FABTECH or several shows a year |
| Custom booth | <strong>€600 to €1,500/m²</strong> | Bespoke design, machine staging, meeting rooms, hanging sign |
| Double-deck booth | On request | Meeting rooms upstairs, demo floor downstairs, without renting more space |
| Chicago and Las Vegas specifics | Quoted per show | Union labour for installation, drayage per hundredweight, rigging for heavy machines, electrical and compressed air billed by the general contractor |
Figures in this table are indicative and vary by stand size, materials, show rules and the general contractor. Ask for a personalised quote for an accurate budget.
On a machinery show, drayage and rigging often weigh more than the booth structure itself: a five-tonne press brake has to be moved from the dock to your space by the official contractor. Our guide to exhibition stand costs details the price drivers, and our modular trade show booth offer keeps the structure budget under control when you exhibit at FABTECH, WESTEC and the European shows in the same year.
Decore Studio Events designs your booth in Paris, has it produced by partner workshops and installed by local partner crews in Chicago or Las Vegas, and manages the technical file, the general contractor, rigging and union-labour rules for you.
Why exhibit at FABTECH 2027? 🎯
- The whole North American fabricating market in one hall: job shops, OEMs and distributors come to buy, not just to look.
- Chicago is the big edition: odd years at McCormick Place draw the largest floors and attendance.
- Launch a machine or a process in front of the trade press and the associations that set the industry agenda.
- Benchmark competitors running the same demos a few aisles away.
A custom trade show booth built around your machine, with a safe demo perimeter, a product wall and a quiet meeting corner, converts aisle traffic into leads. If you also exhibit at Las Vegas shows, our stand builders in Las Vegas page explains how we run the LVCC technical file.
How to exhibit at FABTECH: timeline 🗓️
- 12 months before: reserve space with the organiser, ideally during the previous edition when priority booking opens.
- 8 to 6 months before: brief your booth builder on the machines to show (weight, footprint, power, air, fumes), validate concept and budget.
- 4 months before: freeze the design, order graphics, book rigging and electrical with the general contractor, confirm freight or local sourcing.
- 2 months before: ship machines (ATA carnet for temporary import), register staff, book hotels near McCormick Place.
- Show week: installation by local crews under union rules, machine commissioning, demos rehearsed before the doors open.
Read how to brief your stand builder and our guide to exhibiting at a trade show. For a hands-off project, the turnkey exhibition stand service covers design, production, logistics and installation.
⚠️ Important
We are not the organisers of FABTECH and do not provide tickets, badges or exhibit space. Registration, the exhibitor list and booth space are handled by the organiser on fabtechexpo.com.
Our role is exclusively to design, build and install trade show booths, so that you can exhibit in the best possible conditions.
👉 Exhibiting at FABTECH 2027 and looking for a booth that sells? Get in touch via this dedicated page
Further reading 📚
▸ How much does an exhibition stand cost?
▸ Double-deck exhibition stand
Every project is unique. Tell us about your show, your floor space and your objectives: we'll come back to you with an initial concept and a detailed quote.
