RAPID 2024, I think my 7th RAPID show and first one on the West Coast. 2020 was scheduled for Anaheim but as you can imagine it never happened. I've seen a lot at these and did some good networking. Few things I was working on outside of let's grow AON3D. Sorry for the ranting in advance, but this is an industry moment for AM.
BCCC 3D Printing Expo: I'm working to make this something special
Materials: I have the only high-temp machine in SJ to my knowledge
What Can I say about this years RAPID?
There's been a lot of FUD in the AM industry. I think it could be summarized best by David Lakatos: What’s wrong with 3D printing? (and why we acquired Micronics) | by Dávid Lakatos | Jul, 2024 | Medium - There has been talks of M&A, and to be fair there has been a lot of M&A. Some of the companies, such as one of the publicly traded LPBF companies, loses money per machine. But before I go further let's not confuse something:
In short: AM companies are helping companies in numerous ways, just the machine manufacturers are not making profits.
So where does that lead us to some of the AM Industry themes @ RAPID 2024.
- There were more companies than ever before there (it may be oversaturated - ESPECIALLY FGF)
- There were LESS prospective customers than ever before (I heard that from multiple vendors)
- Everyone was saying the service bureaus (part providers) were doing really well - I have known this for years.
People have all types of solutions for this such as focusing and catering to specific industry challenges. Maybe this is accomplished through software and software workflows, but ultimately there was not much new process technologies.
This means, challenges are being solved, companies are profiting off AM, but they are choosing to derisk by outsourcing.
RAPID 2025 will be even worse
Rapid 2025(Detroit) and FormNext America (Chicago) are on the SAME EXACT DATE. So now you are taking a challenge of opportunities, and making companies bet on where prospective customers are. The companies are all taking polls in chat rooms to make that decision, and that is not the voice of the customer. This means that RAPID 2025 will be worse, even if the overall interest in AM machines grows. This industry is oversaturated with shows as is (look at my blog for proof), two at the same time is destructive.
If curious Rapid chose to have it the same date as FormNext as FormNext, the largest show in the world(Germany) has been attempting to take over, so the idea as I understand it is to have a Highlander style battle in 2025.
It is also an election year, and maybe people are just cautious. I still love AM and do not want to jump ship.
