ACE17 Wrap

Here is my belated and brief wrap up of the 2017 AWWA Annual Conference and Exposition. I didn’t have high expectations for ACE17 in Philadelphia being a memorable conference because the location didn’t excite me and I thought attendance would be down, but I was pleasantly surprised. With the conference hotels close to the convention center it was easy to get around and the market and downtown restaurants were also conveniently close by. 

In the exhibit hall the traffic seemed pretty good although I can’t quantify if it was better or worse than recent years. There were a few more larger exhibitors missing this year but I like the way the AWWA has moved the bookstore into the hall and made a stage area for presentations, etc, perhaps because of the room left by a few less large exhibitors, so that you can browse these areas as you go through the hall.

I attended a few of the wastewater reuse sessions as these presentations were of specific interest to me, and they were lightly attended overall – I am not sure if this was indicative of other sessions or if wastewater reuse has been flogged a lot lately with sessions at the Membrane Technology Conference earlier in the year and separate WateReuse conferences dedicated to the subject. Unfortunately I did not get to other presentations as I was tied up in the exhibit hall.

Overall I thought it was a pretty good ACE with a strong technical program and a pretty large exhibition despite a few larger players missing. There was certainly some buzz about ACE18 in Vegas next year, and I heard a few of the prodigal sons will be back exhibiting (hopefully they have dropped down the site selection pecking order as punishment for their absence). I am sure ACE18 will be one of the biggest ACE’s in some time!