A Guide to SPS for First-Time Exhibitors
SPS — Smart Production Solutions — is the automation industry's principal annual meeting in Europe, and the 2026 edition runs 24–26 November at Messe Nürnberg. It fills fifteen halls with more than a thousand exhibitors; the 2025 edition drew 1,175 companies from 39 countries and around 56,000 visitors. 2026 is the 36th edition.
What separates SPS from a general industrial fair is that it shows complete systems rather than only components. Visitors are not just comparing sensors against sensors; they are working out how a drive, a controller, a network layer and a piece of software behave together. That single fact should shape your stand more than anything else on this page.
Who Exhibits at SPS and What Visitors Want
The floor divides roughly into drive systems and components, control and interface technology, sensors, industrial communication and networking, mechanical infrastructure, and software and IT. The convergence is the interesting part: the software and IT presence has grown steadily, and those exhibitors now sit alongside hardware rather than in a separate corner.
The visitor is technical and specific — process engineers, controls specialists, plant engineers, system integrators and the people who will be responsible for the installation afterwards. They arrive with a shortlist and a problem. They are not browsing. What they want to establish in the first minute at your stand is what layer of the stack you occupy, what you interoperate with, and whether you can support a rollout at their scale.
Stand Size: Choosing Between 9, 18, 24 and 48 Square Metres
Nine square metres works at SPS in a way it does not at every show, because a great many component suppliers exhibit small and the audience is used to it. You get a counter, a back wall and a display shelf. It is a legitimate first outing if your product is physically small and your goal is to be findable.
Eighteen square metres is the point at which you can hold a conversation without standing in the aisle, and it suits software and service exhibitors who need screens rather than benches.
Twenty-four is the threshold for a working demonstration. Below it, a live rig and a meeting both fit only in theory; above it, you can put a demo bench along one edge and keep a seated corner separate from it. If you are demonstrating an integrated system, treat 24 m² as the practical floor.
At 48 m² you can run two demo positions and still have an enclosed meeting room, which matters when integration discussions run for an hour. From 80 m² upward a double-decker becomes worth pricing: an upstairs meeting deck adds capacity without eating the ground-floor circulation your demonstrations need.
What an SPS Stand Costs by Size
Ranges below are all-in for design, fabrication, graphics, domestic freight, install and dismantle. They exclude the floor space rental you pay to Mesago, and the electrical and network orders placed with the venue.
- 9 m² modular: €4,100–€8,700
- 18 m² modular: €4,800–€10,100
- 24 m² custom with demo bench: €11,500–€15,000
- 30 m² custom with enclosed meeting room: €15,000–€19,000
- 48 m² custom with two demo positions: €19,000–€26,000
- 80 m² premium or double-decker: €34,000–€48,000
Common Mistakes, in Order of Frequency
The first is designing for a component audience when you sell systems, or the reverse — the two need physically different stands. The second is ordering power but not a wired network line, then discovering the demonstration depends on a wireless band that a thousand other exhibitors are also using. The third is a back wall carrying a large logo where the capability statement should be; this audience wants to know what you interoperate with, not what your brand mark looks like at three metres. The fourth is under-staffing Tuesday, which is the heaviest day of a three-day show. The fifth is leaving the design unlocked into October, which collides with the Formnext and Fachpack builds already in the workshop. All five are avoidable at planning stage.
Getting Started
Send your stand size, your hall and stand number if Mesago has issued it, and a short description of what you intend to demonstrate — particularly whether it needs a network connection. You get a 3D design and an itemised all-in quote, at no charge and with no obligation. If a smaller local builder is the better answer for a 9 m² shell, we will tell you that.
SPS is annual and most exhibitors here also attend one or two other European events, so a reusable system frame is usually the better purchase — the structure stays in our Frankfurt warehouse and each show costs a graphics refresh rather than a rebuild. Our modular exhibition stands are built for exactly that pattern.
