Celebrating ten years of American Coatings Show
After the American Coatings Show and Conference (ACS) kicked off ten years ago, the premier coatings event in North America can look back at impressive growth. The sixth ACS once again broke all records.
The show and conference that took place on 9-12 April 2018 in Indianapolis for the third time was hosted by the American Coatings Association (ACA), in collaboration with Vincentz Network (VN). Over the three show days, more than 9,200 attendees visited the ACS – again exceeding 2016 numbers.
“The 2018 show marks ten years of the AC Show and Conference,” said Cheryl Matthews, ACA’s vice president of events and professional development. “As we celebrate this milestone, we are also recognising ten years of growth. Every show has brought new levels of success for the event, whether it’s expanding learning opportunities or offering companies more opportunities to showcase new products.”
Sold out
“With 558 exhibitors on 137,500 square feet, the show floor was completely sold out,” Amanda Beyer, head of events at VN, added. Over the three show days, more than 9,200 attendees visited the ACS – again exceeding 2016 numbers. Even though the number of exhibitors has only slightly grown compared to the last ACS in 2016, companies occupied more space on the show floor. “Many returning exhibitors have significantly increased their booth space. This demonstrates the significance of the ACS as the leading event for the North American coatings industry.”
Industry was offering a complete portfolio of its products, ranging from coating raw materials to laboratory, production and packaging equipment, and testing and measuring technology, as well as services for the coatings industry.
Successful conference
It is a similar success story for the American Coatings Conference, which drew nearly 1,100 attendees to Indianapolis. In 16 sessions, almost 100 papers with the latest innovations from the industry and academia were presented.
One of the highlights of the plenary session opening the conference was the presentation of the AC Award, which honours the most outstanding technical presentation at the conference. This year, Dr Christian Lenges and his team at DuPont Industrial Biosciences and Synpo received the prestigious prize for their paper titled “Enzymatic Polymerization for Engineered PolySaccharides in Coatings.”
Mattiello Lecture
The last conference day started with the Mattiello Lecture. This year, Dr Ray Fernando of the California Polytechnic State University was presented the prestigious Mattiello Award. His presentation, “Rheological and colloidal aspects of latex-associative thickener formulations: overcoming the remaining challenges,” drew some 150 attendees to the opening session.
With over 300 registered participants, the second ACS Fun Run was a great success. Show exhibitors and visitors as well as conference attendees gathered in the early morning of the second show day to enjoy the 5k route. Twin brothers from Mexico were the fastest runners yesterday. Alfredo Vengara of Alvu Química finished first after only 18:12 minutes, followed on the spot by his brother Alejandro.
The next American Coatings Show will be held in Indianapolis on 31 March – 2 April 2, 2020.
