The Lab Innovations show returned to the NEC, Birmingham, earlier this month to drive sustainability and innovation in laboratories and celebrate its tenth anniversary.
The show’s organisers say numbers were at an all-time high, with 4,213 attendees flocking to network with 192 exhibitors, listen to keynote speakers and celebrate the latest innovations in the laboratory industry. Following the success of this year’s show, 98%of exhibitors have already signed up again for next year’s show and ensured Lab Innovations 2023 will be another unmissable event for the entire laboratory community.
This year, 4,213 attendees visited Lab Innovations, which is a 35 per cent increase on 2021’s attendance and the highest attendance for a Lab Innovations show to date. Visitors were treated to keynote talks by Steven Rannard, professor of chemistry at University of Liverpool, who discussed innovations in nanomedicine, and Alok Jha, science correspondent at The Economist, who focused on the theme of water chemistry.
Visitors could also listen to world-renowned speakers in four free-to-attend theatres during the show, and attendance was at an all-time high this year. Nearly 900 laboratory professionals attended the seminar programmes in the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) theatre, the Cleanroom Hub, Live Lab and the Insights and Innovations Theatre, which was sponsored by My Green Lab and had a key focus of sustainability in the lab industry.
The show also hosted the Lab Awards, in collaboration with Laboratory News and sponsored by Mettler-Toledo, at the Insights and Innovation theatre. The Lab Awards celebrates the best and brightest in the laboratory community and, this year, had more entries than ever before, highlighting what a year it has been for innovation in the lab industry. Category sponsors at the awards included Red Swan Partners, Innovate UK, Kimtech and MiCo BioMed.
The show also hosted a special celebration after the Lab Awards to mark its tenth anniversary, which was sponsored by Analytix. It presented an extra opportunity for this year’s attendees to come together, talk face-to-face and do business, while also providing an excuse to raise a glass in the evening.
Next year’s event takes place on 1-2 November, 2023.