Image: At the TopCon Positioning booth (Left to right): Charles Fairbairn, Contractor magazine; Corey Prutton, Aptella; and Chris Groll from TopCon.
Charles Fairbairn from Contractor magazine reports on his trip to the 2026 CONEXPO-CON/AGG, the five-day trade show that was held in Las Vegas last month.
On the face of it, I had some concerns about travelling to the US as tensions built up around Iran.
I’ll admit to multiple pauses to check that my US Visa embossed in deep red ink on a page in my passport was still valid, and that my social media comments, as anodyne as they were, did not betray something that I might regret with a feisty and officious border agent.
But, as a media guest of the American Equipment Association, I was in great hands. There’s the conference business, and then there’s the whole Las Vegas thing happening 24-7. CONEXPO-CON/AGG takes place every three years and is a monolithic event. Buses ran delegates back and forth from hotels to the site on a continual basis.
The North American construction market generated 2.2 trillion dollars in economic activity, according to 2025 figures, and the show is a spectacle.
Exhibitors seeking to reserve a space at this event must commit two years in advance. There are multiple floor space options available from outdoor temporary arenas (like Volvo, Caterpillar, and other machinery giants), to small indoor booths where all manner of charms must be deployed to gain attention, and the business card still works.
As an example of elaborate client hosting, I couldn’t look past Terex Corporation’s ‘site’ with 30,000 square feet of the largest standardised spaces in the Silver Yard, beside the Central Convention Hall.
I spent time at this booth with the team from Sanland Industries, the exclusive distributor here of Terex’s Evoquip brand of mobile crushers and had a good look at the equipment and the facilities. Disclosure: I was a guest of Evoquip at its Tuesday night function at the Flight Club bar deep in the rear of the Venetian Resort. Thanks for the Guinness, Max!
The company has four divisions with 21 brands and wanted to display 20 machines (including its gigantic Magna crusher). So, forget outdoor marquees, it needed a temporary building and in 10 days of intense construction a two-storey building is what emerged.
Emblazoned in Terex colours and a logo that could be clearly seen from the Monorail disembarkation area, complete with its own hospitality suite and a mezzanine floor licensed for 150 people, the ‘booth’ was – admiration aside – a comparatively modest set-up.
If you wanted to see machines in work mode, however, the Festival Ground, covering 34 acres adjacent to the Strip, was the place to head.
This is where the marketing budgets are all out in an arms race to outdo the competition. Caterpillar has a floor space that is 70,000 square feet (approximately 1.6 acres) and includes a demonstration arena where the Global Operator Competition is held.
Alongside it were Hitachi, Volvo, Kobelco and John Deere. All have a customer greeting space, a merchandise store and, most importantly, a place to drink and chew the fat. Shade and beer are both highly sought-after commodities in this concrete, uber-arena.
Not all the heavy equipment brands set up shop outside. Komatsu, for example, had a very impressive floor display in the West Hall, a space which worked to its advantage, allowing a basic open amphitheatre in which to explain and demonstrate intelligent machine control and the productivity and efficiencies its new machines offer.
I sat in on a repeat presentation by a professional Komatsu speaker with several hundred fellow delegates, a show that, with its audio and visuals, would be less effective outdoors.
Manufacturers are bringing to market machinery that has far more tolerance for inexperience, with personalised software and safety features that will iron out errors and prevent workplace accidents during that critical period of learning.
If alternative energy sources were a big theme in 2023, then 2026 was the year AI assistance was given the full noise. Caterpillar, Hitachi and Sany all showcased software that assists operators, with machinery now responsive to voice command and equipment than can be operated autonomously. Put away those instruction manuals, folks. Now, you can just ask the machine to do it for you, including voice commands such as “avoid the nearby powerlines”.
At the end of each ‘working day’ it was time to head back to the Flamingo Casino where I was staying, past the bars that had been serving shots since 10am, through crowds of fellow sunburnt delegates, and head for anonymity in a hotel reeking of terrible perfume that masked the smoke and alcohol emitted by hotel guests.
On several evenings, I attended customer functions where I found myself describing New Zealand and its customs like some pseudo-marketing mole from NZ Tourism.
A war finally broke out with Iran while I was in the States, but you wouldn’t have known it. The Americans I socialised with were compartmentalising this fact and were reluctant to talk about foreign policy. The priority was machinery, and Kiwi contractors got an excellent display of new innovation and American hospitality.
My hotel room bathroom featured a shampoo bottle with a message on its side, ‘Wash Responsibly’. You could ask whether that same sense of responsibility is evident in the country’s foreign policy.
Meantime, you have to love America. And be grateful for its huge industry expos that provide an astonishing opportunity to get up close to the latest in machinery technology.