Six months prior to the start of the "Formnext" exhibition for additive manufacturing (www.formnext.com), organiser Mesago Messe Frankfurt has already reported good figures for the upcoming event. The number of exhibitors who have registered is up 50% on the figure for this same point in time last year. And the situation is similar for the amount of floorspace booked to date. According to Mesago VP for Formnext Sascha Wenzler, this testifies to the fact that additive manufacturing is currently one of the most important topics for a large number of industries.

The event will be held in Frankfurt / Germany from 13-16 November 2018, with 88 new exhibitors from 19 countries already registered, including Clariant, Mitsubishi Chemicals and Solvay. They will be joining Arkema, BASF, DSM, Sabic and Trinseo that had stands in 2017.

Mesago is intending to extend the scope of the process chain further in 2018. Alongside the sections covered to date, such as hardware and materials, there is now space made for software and post-processing too. This will include powder removal, surface finishing and heat treatment.

In parallel to the trade fair, exhibition partner TCT is putting together a conference programme on current and upcoming developments in research and industry. Added to this is the seminar series entitled "discover3Dprinting", launched in cooperation with the Aachen Center for Additive Manufacturing, a spin-off of German applied research organisation Fraunhofer.