Two world-leading exhibitions—one date

A great surprise from Munich: automatica will be back again next year. The joyous occasion for this change: The exhibition is changing its rhythm to be co-located with LASER World of PHOTONICS in the future. Both world-leading exhibitions will be held simultaneously for the first time in June 2023 (27 to 30), followed by a simultaneous recurrence under one roof every two years.

The global automation and laser technology community would be well-advised to mark this time slot in their calendars. That’s because both automatica, the leading exhibition for smart automation and robotics, and LASER World of PHOTONICS, the world's leading trade fair for photonics components, systems, and applications, will be held in Munich on these four days.

Dr. Reinhard Pfeiffer, Managing Director of Messe München: “Both LASER and automatica cover a wide range of production-related topics and offer solutions across sectors. And they have overlaps that can be leveraged. This will result in added value for exhibitors and visitors of both leading exhibitions, making their attendance and presentations even more worthwhile.”

Sensible move benefits everyone involved

This is an obvious decision as the range of exhibits at automatica and LASER World of PHOTONICS perfectly complement each other: Lasers for welding, cutting, marking, and sensing have become indispensable in highly automated production lines. And what would robotics be without optical and laser-based machine vision? At the same time, the economic benefits of many laser applications can only be harnessed in combination with robots.

This results in a win-win situation for both exhibitions: expanded coverage, improved cost efficiency for both exhibitors and visitors, and increased attention and appeal for two popular co-located leading exhibitions focused on future-oriented trend technology.

Great enthusiasm among exhibitors

Frank Konrad, Chairman of the Board at VDMA Robotics + Automation Association and Chairman of the automatica Advisory Board: “This unique concept will add additional appeal to automatica because the synergies are obvious. A very strong majority of the automatica Advisory Board members was in favor of this decision and the entire industry has already confirmed their participation in 2023.”

And things look very much the same among LASER World of PHOTONICS exhibitors. Dr. Wilhelm Kaenders, Chairman of the Exhibitor Advisory Board and Member of the Board at TOPTICA Photonics AG, also sees the advantages: “A co-located automatica is a perfect complement to LASER. Automation components such as robots, machine vision systems and the like are particularly important in the sector of laser systems for production engineering. Optical metrology is another field in which the solutions presented at both exhibitions mesh like gears. This makes for advantageous co-location and creates a catalyst for innovation.”

A one-of-a-kind offering

The concurrent events will be particularly attractive to many visitors because both exhibitions will be accompanied by an outstanding supporting program and fascinating presentations. With more than 6,000 participants, the World of Photonics Congress is one of the largest conferences for the photonics and laser industry, which covers all the latest advances in technology and science. The high-profile i_Summit will be held within the framework of automatica. This is where leading robotics and AI experts present topics that will dominate the industry, users, and the whole of society in the coming years.

As far as the timeline is concerned, co-locating the two exhibitions requires a one-time exception in automatica’s usual two-year cycle as it will be held again as early as 2023. Patrick Schwarzkopf, Managing Director of the VDMA Robotics + Automation Association, considers this an advantage after the exhibition had to be cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic: “This works well for us because there is a great need to communicate after waiting for four long years. In addition, we have seen huge advances through technological innovation. Exhibitors will thus present important novelties in 2023, too. And the need for robotics and automation solutions is greater than ever.”