Inside FABTECH 2026: Why the Show Is Back in Vegas and How the Data Center Boom Is Reshaping Fab Shops | Ep. 70

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In this episode, I sit down with Mark Hoper, senior vice president of the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, one of the five partners behind FABTECH. Mark’s been doing this since 1989, back when FABTECH wasn’t even an every-year event and a couple hundred exhibitors fit into Rosemont. Today he’s the person every problem eventually lands on for a show with 1,400 exhibitors, 35,000 attendees, and just about every union you can think of working the floor. As he put it, the buck stops with him.

We caught Mark two weeks out from FABTECH 2026 in Las Vegas, the show’s first trip back to Vegas in a decade. He walks me through how a host city actually gets picked, why Formula One bumped FABTECH out of Vegas in 2024, and why Texas, for all the fabrication happening there, doesn’t have a convention center big enough to hold the show.

Then we get into the bigger story, which is demand. One FMA member walked into a call with his biggest customer, a company building racks for Meta’s data centers, and walked out with 50% more business in a single afternoon. Data centers, power generation, aerospace, and defense are pulling hard on fab shop capacity, and Mark thinks we’re still in the early innings.

If you’re going to FABTECH this year, or still deciding whether it’s worth the trip, you’ll walk away knowing where the demand is coming from, what to make of the new AI pavilion, and how to get the most out of the education sessions and free panels. And if you’re not going, you’ll still get a clear read on where the forming and fabricating industry is headed into 2027.

What’s Covered in this Episode

• (0:00) What you’ll find in FABTECH’s education sessions
• (1:03) Meet Mark Hoper, the person every FABTECH problem lands on
• (1:43) The 18-month planning cycle behind 1,400 exhibitors and 35,000 attendees
• (3:31) How FABTECH picks a host city and why Las Vegas draws the West
• (7:08) Why Formula One bumped FABTECH out of Las Vegas in 2024
• (13:01) The rotation: Chicago in odd years, Orlando and Las Vegas in even years
• (14:49) Why there’s no convention center in Texas big enough for FABTECH
• (16:36) Increase spindle uptime without adding headcount with the Hennig Workflow
• (19:13) FABTECH Canada, FABTECH Mexico, and why regional shows matter
• (20:44) Why trade show conversations have a longer half-life than anything else
• (23:31) Data centers, energy, and aerospace driving demand west of the Rockies
• (25:23) The FMA member whose business grew 50% in one afternoon
• (26:18) Gabe from Factur on the go-to-market hierarchy for shops
• (31:54) Maxed out your network? How Factur can help you build your sales pipeline
• (33:39) How a capacity crunch shuffles work and brings new buyers to the show
• (35:46) Why Mark thinks we’re in the early innings of the data center build-out
• (37:59) From Rosemont in 1989 to a million square feet in Chicago in 2027
• (41:13) Inside the new AI pavilion and how to size up AI exhibitors
• (44:26) Make every spindle hour count with Kennametal tooling
• (47:18) Education sessions, free panels, and keynotes at FABTECH 2026

Resources Mentioned

• FABTECH 2026
• Hennig Workflow
• Factur
• Kennametal

Connect with Mark Hoper

• FMA: Fabricators & Manufacturers Association
• LinkedIn