Engineers walking through a busy industrial automation trade show hall with robotic displays

Chicago Automation Fair Explained: What It Is, What Happens There, and Where It Goes Next

ByAlex Morgan

Key takeaway: The Chicago Automation Fair is Rockwell Automation’s annual industrial automation event, most recently held November 17–20, 2025, at McCormick Place in Chicago. It combines a large expo, hands-on labs, technical sessions and off-site tours. The event moves cities: the next edition, Automation Fair 2026, takes place November 16–19, 2026, in Boston, not Chicago.

If you search for the “chicago automation fair,” you are looking for one of the industrial world’s biggest annual gatherings — but the name needs a small warning label. Automation Fair is Rockwell Automation’s signature event, and Chicago has hosted it many times, most recently in November 2025. It does not stay in one city, though, so anyone planning a trip needs to check the current year’s host city before booking anything.

The official Automation Fair page is the place to confirm the latest edition’s dates and venue.

What is the Chicago Automation Fair?

Automation Fair is Rockwell Automation’s premier industrial operations event. Rockwell Automation, listed on the NYSE as ROK, describes itself as the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation. The fair brings together its customers, its PartnerNetwork members — the system integrators, distributors and technology partners that build on Rockwell products — and engineers from the industries that use them.

The Chicago editions have been held at McCormick Place, the city’s giant lakefront convention center. The most recent one, the 34th annual Automation Fair, ran November 17–20, 2025, under the theme “Create What’s Next.” Rockwell said more than 15,000 engineers, makers and industry leaders came together for that edition, after pre-event registration material had expected more than 10,000 professionals.

The event is aimed at people who run, build or buy industrial operations: plant engineers, controls engineers, operations managers, system integrators and manufacturing executives. It is not a consumer tech show. The exhibits are working factory technology — controllers, drives, sensors, software and robots — rather than gadgets.

Chicago Automation Fair editions at a glance

Edition Dates and venue Scale, as reported by Rockwell
2019 (27th annual) November 20–21, Chicago Record-breaking attendance of more than 19,000; 150+ exhibits
2022 (31st annual) November 16, Chicago More than 15,000 makers, builders and innovators; 100+ PartnerNetwork members exhibiting
2025 (34th annual) November 17–20, McCormick Place, Chicago 140+ exhibits; 275+ sessions; 450+ hours of training; 8 off-site tours
2026 (next edition) November 16–19, Boston 14,000+ professionals expected; 150+ exhibits; 250+ sessions; 500+ hours of training

The table shows two things worth noting. First, Chicago is a repeat host, not a permanent home: the fair has also been staged in other cities over the years. Second, the event has grown from a two-day format in 2019 to a four-day format in 2025 and 2026.

What happens at Automation Fair?

The 2025 Chicago program shows the standard shape of the event. Its main parts were:

  • The expo: more than 140 exhibits across half a million square feet, with live demos and working applications from Rockwell and its PartnerNetwork members, plus a discovery theater and guided tours.
  • Educational sessions: more than 275 sessions with insights from over 400 industry specialists, covering control, information, networking, power, motion, process, safety and visualization topics.
  • Hands-on labs and training: more than 450 hours of advanced training where attendees work directly with the technology rather than just watching presentations.
  • Industry forums: sessions for sectors including chemical, food and beverage, life sciences, material handling, mining, power and energy, and water and wastewater.
  • Off-site tours: eight exclusive visits to operating facilities in life sciences, food and beverage and advanced manufacturing, plus an academic institute.

The 2025 edition’s big theme, according to independent analyst coverage from Verdantix, was the shift from traditional automation toward more autonomous operations — hardware, software and data management converging, and agentic AI starting to appear in product roadmaps, including six initial AI agents in Rockwell’s Plex Systems platform for tasks such as automated quality checks and analytics recommendations.

How Automation Fair compares with other automation events

Automation Fair is best understood as a single-vendor flagship event with a partner ecosystem attached, which is different from a neutral industry trade show. A neutral show spreads attention across competing vendors; Automation Fair concentrates it on Rockwell’s portfolio and the partners that integrate with it. That depth is the point for Rockwell users, and it is the main limitation for anyone shopping across vendors — you will see one ecosystem in great depth, not the whole market side by side.

Compared with online webinars and virtual events, the fair’s advantage is the hands-on element: labs, live demos and facility tours that cannot be replicated on video. Compared with smaller regional user-group meetings, its advantage is scale — hundreds of sessions and specialists in one place. The trade-off is cost and time: four days away plus travel, against a free webinar watched from a desk.

What does attending Automation Fair cost?

Automation Fair is a paid event in its current format, and the price depends on the pass and on when you register. For the 2026 Boston edition, Rockwell’s official passes page lists a General Access Pass — covering all four days, keynotes, the expo, summits, off-site tours, sessions, networking and a daily lunch — at $495 for early registration, $795 for advanced registration and $895 onsite. Adding advanced training, with more than 500 hours of hands-on labs and technical training plus Professional Development Hour credits, raises those tiers to $1,595, $1,895 and $2,295 respectively.

Registration is complimentary for media, analysts, students, speakers and educators. Travel and lodging are on top of the pass price either way, and that is usually the larger cost for out-of-town attendees. Note that the pricing model has changed over the years — some past editions were free to attend — so do not assume a previous year’s price applies to the next edition.

What do you need before you attend?

The practical prerequisites are simple: registration through Rockwell’s official Automation Fair page, and a reason to be there. The event rewards attendees who arrive with a short list of problems to solve — a control upgrade, a network security question, a plant-floor data project — because the expo floor and the labs are organized around working through real applications with specialists.

First-time attendees should plan around the session catalog rather than wandering the expo alone: pick labs and technical sessions in advance, since hands-on training places are the scarcest resource. If you are new to Rockwell’s ecosystem, background reading helps — our explainers on automation utilities, RPA automation testing and automation tooling equipment applications cover the kinds of tools and concepts that appear on the show floor.

Risks and limits to know before you go

The biggest trap with the “Chicago Automation Fair” search is the moving venue. The 2026 edition is in Boston, and future editions may be elsewhere again, so a search result about a Chicago edition may describe a past event. Always confirm the current year’s city and dates on Rockwell’s official page before booking travel.

A second limit is scope: the fair showcases one vendor’s ecosystem. It is excellent for depth on Rockwell and PartnerNetwork technology, but it is not a neutral comparison of every automation vendor. A third limit is timing — the event is annual and in November, so if you miss it, the next chance is roughly a year away, though Rockwell publishes session content and product news from the event afterwards.

Analysis: why the Chicago name still matters

Analysis: Chicago keeps appearing in Automation Fair searches for a good reason — it has hosted some of the event’s biggest editions, including the record 2019 gathering of more than 19,000 people. But the fair’s identity is Rockwell’s, not Chicago’s, and the rotation to Boston for 2026 proves it. For readers, the useful mental model is “Automation Fair, most recently in Chicago, next in Boston” — not “an annual Chicago event.” That single correction saves a wasted trip, which is exactly the kind of practical detail a plain-English explainer should deliver.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Chicago Automation Fair?

The Chicago Automation Fair is Rockwell Automation’s annual industrial automation event as staged in Chicago, most recently November 17–20, 2025, at McCormick Place. It combines a large technology expo with hands-on labs, technical sessions, industry forums and off-site facility tours for engineers and operations leaders.

When was the last Chicago Automation Fair?

The last Chicago edition was the 34th annual Automation Fair, held November 17–20, 2025, at McCormick Place in Chicago under the theme “Create What’s Next.” It featured more than 140 exhibits, more than 275 sessions and more than 450 hours of training.

Is there a Chicago Automation Fair in 2026?

No. Automation Fair 2026 takes place November 16–19, 2026, at the Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center in Boston, under the theme “Future in Focus.” Rockwell expects more than 14,000 professionals at the Boston edition, so anyone searching for the Chicago event should plan for Boston instead.

What happens at Automation Fair?

Attendees explore an expo of working industrial technology, join educational sessions and hands-on labs, attend industry forums, and visit operating facilities on off-site tours. Keynotes and summits cover the direction of industrial operations, with recent editions emphasizing autonomous operations and AI-assisted manufacturing.

How much does Automation Fair cost?

For the 2026 Boston edition, Rockwell lists a General Access Pass at $495 for early registration, $795 for advanced registration and $895 onsite, with a higher tier adding advanced training. Registration is complimentary for media, analysts, students, speakers and educators, and travel and lodging are extra.

Sources


Similar Posts