Rockwell Automation Fair 2026 for suppliers and integrators outside the PartnerNetwork

Rockwell Automation Fair runs Nov. 16 to 19, 2026, in Boston, according to Rockwell’s Automation Fair page, and the event FAQ puts it at the Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center. If your company sells components, software or integration work into plants that run Rockwell controls and is not a member of the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork, you cannot buy a booth or a sponsorship, because the exhibitor and sponsor page says “you must be a member of the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork program” to take part as either. You can still attend on a General Access pass, which costs $795 through Nov. 13 and $895 from Nov. 14 by the FAQ’s price list. The passes page says that pass covers all four days, including keynotes, the Expo and the Summits.

We think one or two General Access passes are worth buying for a non-partner whose customers are the end users on Rockwell’s program. We counted the Automation Fair session catalog on Nov. 1, 2026, and found 291 sessions. Twenty-one are Customer Voices sessions, 14 of whose titles name the end user, from General Mills to EPCOR Water, and 16 are tagged for the Sales & Business Development job function. The exhibitor list names 135 companies with booth numbers, which makes a ready target list, and the FAQ’s answer on business meetings says customer meetings at an adjacent event hotel need no registration.

What can a company outside the PartnerNetwork do at Rockwell Automation Fair?

The exhibitor and sponsor page warns that the PartnerNetwork application “can take several months” and that new applications “may not be completed prior to Automation Fair exhibitor/sponsorship deadlines.” Its deadline list gave Aug. 31 as the sponsorship sign-up deadline and Sept. 30 as the exhibitor sign-up deadline, with “limited available” after each date. The same exhibitor and sponsor page says the Automation Fair events team “will not redirect, review or approve the applications,” so an application waits on the partner program alone.

The FAQ’s pass rules say one-day passes, Expo-only passes and reduced-rate guest passes are not sold and attendee substitutions are not permitted, which means each pass belongs to the person named on it. Access to the Expo and the Connection Zone requires a General Access pass, according to the FAQ. Expo hours, which the FAQ says may change, are 9:45 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Nov. 17 and Nov. 18 and 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Nov. 19.

For a non-partner, the most useful part of the FAQ is its answer on business meetings, which says a meeting hosted in the Expo or the Connection Zone requires a General Access pass and then adds, “For meetings hosted at an adjacent event hotel or convention center meeting rooms, registration is not required.” By our reading, a customer who meets you for an hour at an event hotel does not have to register for the fair, while your own salesperson needs a pass to walk the Expo or sit in sessions. The FAQ does not say how a company without a booth books a convention center meeting room, so we would plan on a hotel room.

What is in the 291-session catalog for a commercial team?

Rockwell’s Automation Fair page advertises “250+ educational sessions,” and our count of 291 in the session catalog also includes labs, tours, keynotes and networking events. By the catalog’s session types, Insights & Education is the largest, at 91, followed by Partner Solutions at 50 and Hands-on Labs at 41. The 41 labs, the 22 Product & Technology sessions and one networking lunch need the Advanced Training pass under the catalog’s pass filter, and the FAQ prices that pass at $1,895 through Nov. 13 and $2,295 on site. The other 227 sessions in the catalog are open to General Access holders, and only 16 of the 291 are tagged for sales and business development, so the program is mostly built for engineers and plant staff.

Insights & Education91 sessions

Partner Solutions50

Hands-on LabNeeds Advanced Training pass41

Product & TechnologyNeeds Advanced Training pass22

Customer Voices21

Discovery Theater19

Industry Viewpoints16

Product Intro Lab12

Off-Site Tour7

Summit5

Networking3 General Access pass; 1 needs Advanced Training pass (NW04 lunch)4

Keynote3

Automation Fair 2026 sessions by type

Item	Value (sessions)	Note
Insights & Education	91 sessions
Partner Solutions	50
Hands-on Lab	41	Needs Advanced Training pass
Product & Technology	22	Needs Advanced Training pass
Customer Voices	21
Discovery Theater	19
Industry Viewpoints	16
Product Intro Lab	12
Off-Site Tour	7
Summit	5
Networking	4	3 General Access pass; 1 needs Advanced Training pass (NW04 lunch)
Keynote	3

Sessions listed in the Rockwell Automation Fair 2026 catalog on Nov. 1, 2026, by the catalog's session type. Hands-on Labs, Product & Technology sessions and one networking lunch need the Advanced Training pass; the other 227 of 291 are open to General Access holders. Rockwell advertises 250+ educational sessions; our count of 291 includes labs, tours, keynotes and networking. Source: Rockwell Automation Fair session catalog; Plant to Pipeline count.

We would send a sales or marketing person to Customer Voices first, because 14 of those 21 session titles name the end user. The Nov. 1 session catalog lists Customer Voices sessions on Cargill’s control systems for a loss of communications, General Mills’ control system risk management, Genentech’s manufacturing execution system (MES) migration, a PLC upgrade at Mars, site acceptance testing at Novo Nordisk, mobile HMI access at Oxy and alarm notification at EPCOR Water. Among the 16 Industry Viewpoints sessions, IV02 covers how Ford and Rockwell use dimensional AI for quality.

When we paged through the session catalog on Nov. 1, 36 sessions were marked “Session full,” 26 “Session near capacity” and 73 “Session filling up,” so 135 of 291 carried a capacity label. Seven of the 21 Customer Voices sessions were full, including the Cargill, General Mills, Mars and Novo Nordisk sessions, and eight more were filling up. All seven off-site tours were full or near capacity.

Most of the 16 sessions tagged Sales & Business Development cover products and design, such as the PowerFlex 535 compact drive and control panel building, and two need the Advanced Training pass. The one whose title addresses business leaders is SM03, the OEM Leader-to-Leader Summit on Nov. 17.

Who is on the expo floor?

Rockwell’s exhibitor page says “Meet 150+ exhibitors,” and its alphabetical list names 135 with booth numbers. Nine of the 135 are Rockwell Automation Authorized Distributors in booths D-1 to D-9, among them Sonepar, Wesco, Border States, Rexel USA and Kendall Electric. If you sell through electrical distributors, those nine booths are where their Rockwell teams will be.

The exhibitor list sorts exhibitors into 17 product categories, and a company can appear in more than one. By our count of the list’s categories, Process Solutions has the most listings, 43, then Industrial Components with 31, Networks & Infrastructure with 20, Advanced Motion & Robotics with 19 and Safety Solutions with 15. The companies in your own category are either competitors already inside Rockwell’s program or makers of products that sit next to yours on a panel or a line.

Three industry associations also have booths on the exhibitor list, the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA) at 577, ODVA at 1715 and FieldComm Group at 1413. The CSIA booth is a direct way to meet integrators, who often choose the components on a control project.

The main Automation Fair page says the fair “is brought to you by Rockwell Automation and the following PartnerNetwork members” and lists sponsors including Cisco, Endress+Hauser, Microsoft, Rittal and Eplan.

What do the 50 Partner Solutions sessions say about getting on stage?

Of the 50 Partner Solutions descriptions we read, 24 name an outside company as presenter or partner, two name a product only as an example, two name only the end customer, and 22 name no company. By our reading, 12 integration or engineering firms present or co-present in 11 of those sessions, including Applied Control Engineering, DMC, E Tech Group, Interstates and RoviSys. Three Partner Solutions sessions put four Technology Partners on one panel, and PS02, for example, promises “updates from Technology Partners Festo, METTLER TOLEDO, Pepperl+Fuchs, and VEGA Americas on process innovations.”

Speakers work to a separate date in the deadline list on the exhibitor and sponsor page, which reads “April 30: Deadline to submit for the Call for Speakers.” The page does not say who may submit or whether speakers must be PartnerNetwork members.

Integrators and Technology Partners are two of the six partner types on Rockwell’s PartnerNetwork page, and each has its own way in. The Technology Partner page tells a product company to contact its Rockwell Automation product manager or business unit representative and ask them to request an application from the program team. The System Integrator page describes a tiered program in which integrators “achieve the revenue milestone associated with each tier.” If you run an integration firm outside the program, the 11 Partner Solutions sessions with integrators on stage show the kind of project Rockwell features, from a rare earth pilot plant (PS04) to a city water system (PS41), and the CSIA booth at 577 is where your own trade association will be.

How early do you need to start for a 2027 booth?

The exhibitor and sponsor page lists March 17 as the day exhibit and sponsorship sales opened and a June 16 entry that offered companies signing up for a package “early access to 2027 Chicago opportunities,” and it gives no 2027 dates for booths or for the Call for Speakers. With a PartnerNetwork application that can take several months, a supplier that wants a 2027 booth should raise membership with its Rockwell contact in the weeks after the Boston show.

In your industry

For industrial machinery and equipment companies, 66 of the 291 sessions in the session catalog carry its OEM/Machine Builder industry tag and 14 sit on the OEM/Machine Builders track. The two to book are the OEM Viewpoint session (IV09) on Nov. 16 and the OEM Leader-to-Leader Summit (SM03) on Nov. 17.

For automation and industrial tech companies, the three Technology Partner panels (PS01 on data centers, PS02 on process and PS03 on wireless) show how Rockwell groups partners by application. On the floor, the exhibitor list puts 12 companies under Industrial Cybersecurity and 20 under Networks & Infrastructure, and 13 sessions sit on the catalog’s Securing OT & Industrial Systems track.

What to do by Nov. 13

1. Register the person who will travel by Nov. 13, while the General Access pass is $795. The FAQ does not allow substitutions, and the price rises to $895 on Nov. 14. Our trade show ROI worksheet helps set the return a two-person trip has to clear.
2. In the session catalog, filter by your industry and by Sales & Business Development, and add the Customer Voices sessions for your target accounts to your agenda as soon as you register.
3. Copy the 135 names on the exhibitor list into a spreadsheet, mark the ones in your product categories and the nine distributor booths, and ask for 20-minute meetings before Nov. 16. Hold your meetings with people who agreed to them in advance, and leave the aisles and other companies’ booths alone. Our target account list guide covers adding contacts.
4. Book a meeting room at a hotel next to the Menino center for customer meetings, which the FAQ says need no registration. Rockwell’s travel page does not name its official event hotels or say which are adjacent, so you will need to find the adjacent hotels and book the room with the hotel yourself.
5. Put the CSIA, ODVA and FieldComm Group booths from the exhibitor list on your plan for the Expo days.
6. If you want a booth in 2027, start the partner route that fits your company. A product company asks its Rockwell product manager or business unit representative to request a Technology Partner application, and an integrator fills in the System Integrator partner request form to “request a conversation.” Compare the cost of a booth with our review of 12 exhibitor price sheets.