LIGHTFAIR International Heads Back to Chicago After 23-Year Hiatus
January 5, 2017
LIGHTFAIR® International (LFI) has announced it will hold its 2018 trade show and conference at McCormick Place in Chicago. Set for May 6-10, the event will mark LIGHTFAIR’s first staging in the Windy City since 1995.
According to Jeffrey L. Portman, Sr., vice chairman, president and COO of LFI managing partner AmericasMart Atlanta, which produces and manages the show, the move is designed to accommodate the show’s continuing growth.
Taking the event to Chicago will not only provide the global lighting design community with the accessibility, convenience and service benefits available in the city, but also in the convention center’s 2.6 million square feet of exhibition space, he said.
“We expect Chicago and McCormick Place to help deliver a LIGHTFAIR experience of extraordinary relevance and resonance,” Portman said. “The spectacular scope of LIGHTFAIR exhibits, together with its extensive conference programming, demands an environment of the scale which McCormick Place offers – one that our customers will embrace and enjoy.”
As the world’s largest annual architectural and commercial lighting trade show and conference that rotates between the east and west coasts, LFI brings the industry’s newest and most innovative products and technologies to lighting designers, specifiers, architects, consultants and engineers from around the globe.
“Chicago and LIGHTFAIR enjoy closely aligned postures within the global lighting design community,” said Marsha L. Turner, CAE, chief executive officer of LFI partner International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD). “Both command pivotal roles as centers of lighting and technology innovation and thought leadership.”
She added, “We look forward to all that the 2018 trade show and conference will achieve in this uniquely advantageous setting.”
Throughout the trade show floor, LFI exhibitors showcase exclusive introductions and a wide spectrum of solutions, including LEDs, OLEDs, luminaires, controls, energy-efficient products, alternative energy including solar power, decorative, integrated design, exterior and roadway, software, solutions, IoT and innovative design.
The event also features six pavilions: Design; Exterior & Roadway Lighting; Global Light + Design; New Exhibitor Pavilion, and new for 2017, Intelligent Lighting Pavilion and IoT Pavilion.
“With LIGHTFAIR’s consistent and continuing growth must come exploration of different venues and new approaches to its staging,” said Timothy Licitra, executive vice president of LFI partner Illuminating Engineering Society (IES).
He continued, “Chicago and McCormick Place create for LIGHTFAIR, and particularly our exhibitors, a new canvas for innovation and expansion.”
LFI 2017 is set to take place May 7-11 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.
Held at the San Diego Convention Center April 24-28, LFI 2106 set new trade show floor and west-coast attendance records with 27,628 attendees and 617 exhibitors spanning 269,680 net. sq. ft. of exhibition space.
The event ranks #80 on the 2015 TSNN Top 250 U.S. Trade Shows.
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