A Guide to Tech For Industry Show for First-Time Exhibitors
Tech For Industry Show is a French trade fair for Industry 4.0 — the technologies that sit between the factory floor and the enterprise system. Automation and robotics, industrial AI and analytics, industrial IoT, digital twins and simulation, industrial cloud and cybersecurity, and the digital supply chain. The second edition runs 19–20 May 2027 at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles.
The inaugural edition was held 23–24 June 2026 in Hall 5.2 and closed with 3,900 visitors representing 953 industrial companies, 97 exhibitors of which 23 were start-ups, and 60 conference sessions delivered by more than 140 speakers. Two awards, an Innovation Award and a Startup Award, were presented for the first time. Note the slot has moved: the second edition sits in May rather than June, so every deadline you might carry over from last year's diary lands roughly five weeks earlier.
Exhibiting at a Second-Edition Show
A young show is a different commercial proposition from an established one, and it is worth being clear-eyed about the trade. What you give up is certainty — you cannot look up three years of visitor data, you do not know who your neighbours will be, and a first edition's numbers are one data point rather than a trend. What you get in exchange is a floor small enough to be walked completely, a visitor who has come deliberately rather than out of habit, and a position on the plan that is still negotiable.
The practical consequence is that the right stand here is usually smaller and better rather than bigger. On a floor of around a hundred exhibitors, a well-lit 18 square metres with one demonstration that actually works will be seen by more or less everyone who attends. The same budget spent on 48 square metres of unfilled space and three screens showing three different things converts worse and costs more to install.
It also means you should ask questions an established show would not tolerate. Ask the organiser what the floorplan looks like today rather than accepting the first offered position. Ask which conference sessions sit nearest your aisle, because on a two-day show the programme is what moves the crowd. None of this is unusual on a young event; it is simply less available later.
Who Exhibits and What the Visitor Is Actually Doing
The exhibitor base spans industrial software and MES vendors, automation and robotics suppliers, integrators and consultancies, IIoT and sensor manufacturers, industrial cloud and cybersecurity firms, and a substantial start-up contingent — nearly a quarter of the first edition. The visitor profile is senior and cross-sector: industrial and plant directors, operations and production managers, CIOs and IT-OT leads, innovation and R&D managers, drawn from aerospace and defence, automotive, energy, food and drink, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, construction and logistics.
What that visitor is doing is scoping a project, not filling a trolley. The 3,900 attendees at the first edition came from 953 companies, which is roughly four people per firm — buying groups walking the floor together rather than individuals collecting brochures. That has a direct design consequence: you need somewhere for four people to stand around one screen, and ideally somewhere for three of them to sit down. Counting seats is a more useful sizing exercise here than counting square metres.
It also changes what belongs on the wall. A procurement team is trying to establish, quickly, what you integrate with, what it costs to run, and who else in their sector already uses it. Naming the protocols and systems you connect to, in readable type, does more qualifying work from the aisle than any slogan.
Stand Size: 9, 18, 24 and 48 Square Metres on a Two-Day Show
Nine square metres is a serious option here rather than a fallback, particularly for start-ups and single-product software vendors. You get a counter, a back wall and one screen. What you cannot do is seat anybody, so it works if your demonstration takes ninety seconds and your follow-up happens by email.
Eighteen is where most first-time exhibitors at this show should land. It carries a proper demonstration position, an aisle-legible screen and a table with two or three seats — enough for the buying group described above without paying for floor you will not fill on a two-day run.
Twenty-four is the threshold at which a physical demonstration cell becomes comfortable: a cobot or an AGV needs its reach envelope, its guarding and a route for visitors to stand outside it rather than in it. If you are bringing anything that moves, treat 24 square metres as the working minimum and send us the cell drawings before the stand design starts.
At 48 you can run two independent demonstrations and still hold a private conversation behind an acoustic panel, which is the size most integrators and platform vendors want. Beyond that, ask honestly whether a two-day appearance justifies it, or whether the same structure should be bought once and taken to three shows.
What a Stand Costs by Size
Ranges below are all-in for design, fabrication, graphics, road freight from Frankfurt, installation and dismantling. They exclude the floor space rental you pay the organiser, and the network, electrical and rigging orders placed with the venue.
- 9 m² modular: €4,100–€8,700
- 18 m² modular with a screen and a seated corner: €4,800–€10,100
- 24 m² custom with one demonstration cell position: €11,500–€15,000
- 30 m² custom with an enclosed meeting room: €15,000–€19,000
- 48 m² custom with two demonstration positions: €19,000–€26,000
- 80 m² premium or double-decker: €34,000–€48,000
Common Mistakes, in Order of Frequency
The most common is trusting hall wireless with a live demonstration, which produces the single worst moment of a trade fair: a buyer standing in front of a loading spinner. The second is planning the build calendar from an ordinary May, when in 2027 the French calendar loses Ascension Thursday on the 6th, the bridge day after it, and Whit Monday on the 17th — two days before the show opens. The third is bringing a robot cell without its safety documentation and anchoring requirement, which is discovered at the worst possible time. The fourth is over-sizing: buying floor area appropriate to a five-day fair for a two-day one. The fifth is three mid-sized screens showing three different things, none of which reads from the aisle. All five are settled at design stage or not at all.
Getting Started
Send your stand size, your hall and stand number once the organiser has issued it, and a description of what you intend to demonstrate — software on a screen, a physical cell, or both. If a robot or AGV is involved, include its footprint, declared safety distances and anchoring requirement. You get a 3D design and an itemised all-inclusive quote back, at no charge and with no obligation.
Because this is a two-day show, a structure you own and reuse across several fairs in a year is almost always the better arithmetic than a single-use build. Our modular exhibition stands are designed for exactly that pattern — stored in Frankfurt between shows and refreshed with new graphics rather than rebuilt.
