all about automation zürich 2026
Zürich.

What all about automation zürich is, in two lines

all about automation zürich is the Swiss regional trade fair for industrial automation: two days at Messe Zürich where users and technical decision-makers meet manufacturers of automation components and systems, robotics suppliers, system integrators, software and digitalisation specialists, service providers, and distributors. It is a compact, single-venue event built around direct contact and practical solutions, not plenary conferences.

It is not a fair for the general public: it is where Swiss and DACH manufacturing goes to see who supplies what, in high-density technical conversations. Across just two days, lead management matters as much as the booth presence, if not more: you have half the time of a standard fair to turn traffic into pipeline.

What to exhibit, where to exhibit

There are no thematic halls: the fair is a single hall at Messe Zürich (Wallisellenstrasse 49). The organisation by macro-area is effectively by product category, around three poles:

• Industrial automation: PLC, control, sensors, motion control, drives, components
• Robotics: industrial and collaborative robots, end-of-line, integration
• Digitalisation / Industry 4.0: industrial IT, software, connectivity, digital twin, monitoring

Because it is co-located with maintenance Schweiz (one ticket, same venue), there is a cross-flow of maintenance/MRO buyers you will not find at automation-only fairs. If your offering touches reliability, condition monitoring, spare parts, or service, position yourself to intercept that traffic: the “maintenance” visitor is a genuine technical decision-maker, not a passer-by.

Visitor profile, who actually enters the booth

The all about automation zürich visitor is markedly technical and regional. Expect:

• Swiss + DACH audience: mostly Swiss manufacturing and mechanical-engineering companies, with a share of German and Austrian cross-border attendees
• Automation engineers and technical decision-makers: the heart of the crowd, they arrive with a specific problem in mind
• Production heads and plant managers: looking for solutions applicable to their own lines
• System integrators: looking for products to resell or integrate for end clients
• Maintenance and operations staff: arriving mainly from the maintenance Schweiz cross-traffic
• R&D, design engineers, purchasing: profiles that close or influence the purchase

The decision-making profile is high: this is a working fair, with a single professional ticket, where everyone who enters already has a technical reason to be there. The density of conversations is its defining feature, and its trap: in 2 days you risk speaking with many people and remembering few unless you structure your capture.

How to prepare in the 4 weeks before the event

Week -4, messaging audit

Verify that your value proposition answers the three questions every Swiss technical visitor asks within the first 30 seconds at the booth:

1. What you do, in one sentence
2. Who it is for, precise ICP segment (e.g. “robotics integrators for packaging”)
3. What changes, measurable benefit (% scrap rate, labour hours, downtime, cost per piece)

No slides. No brochures. One clear sentence, repeated by every team member. The DACH audience values technical substance: precision and data, not marketing.

Week -3, booth operations playbook

Define who does what across the two days. At a compact fair the risk is not boredom, it is overload: traffic concentrates and arrives in waves.

• Who is on the front line at the booth
• Who handles technical demos
• Who is in the back office (HQ) running live follow-up during the event (yes, over 2 days this is even more decisive, see below)
• Who is the point of contact for senior decision-makers who show up

Over 2 days, avoid long shifts: technical conversation quality drops after a few hours. Even with a small team, rotate.

Week -2, qualification form

Every contact collected at the fair must be qualified on the spot, not “later”. At a 2-day fair “later” arrives immediately, and you are already on the journey home. The critical questions are only 3:

1. Timing: when do you need a solution? (Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4/not sure)
2. Budget: is there already a budget line allocated?
3. Decision: who decides, and how many people are involved?

Everything else (technical details, company size, specific context) can be found in the 30+ public data sources that good automated enrichment covers without you needing to ask in person.

Week -1, CRM integrations

The classic mistake: contacts collected on paper, photos of badges, the organiser’s smart badge, and then no one moves them into the CRM. Follow-up starts 9 days after the event (industry average), by which time the prospect has already spoken with your competitors, who in Zürich were in the same hall a few metres away.

Configure the system so that every scan, at the fair, lands directly in the company CRM, with event tag, qualification answers, and a voice note from the sales rep. Not in an Excel, not in a proprietary fair app, not in a Google sheet “we’ll tidy up on Monday”.

Is the Easyfairs smart badge worth it as a lead capture tool?

Note carefully: all about automation zürich has no official navigation app. What the organiser Easyfairs provides is its own smart-badge / lead-scan technology on site (Visit Connect-style): you scan the visitor’s badge at the booth and the contact is captured in the Easyfairs system.

That is useful for not losing the name, but this is exactly where the misunderstanding starts. What the Easyfairs smart badge does NOT do, and why it is not enough for a sales team:

• It stays in the Easyfairs ecosystem. Contacts live in the organiser’s platform, not in your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive).
• It does not enrich data. If the badge only has name, surname, and company, that is all you keep.
• It does not qualify. There is no on-the-spot “timing/budget/decision”, you are left with an undifferentiated list of scans.
• It does not send follow-up. Follow-up is on you, manually, afterwards, after re-exporting the data.
• It does not generate executive reports. At best you get an export.

The smart badge is a good name collector. As a commercial lead-capture system from fair to CRM to follow-up, it leaves uncovered the entire part that generates pipeline. That is exactly the gap Linkly fills: scan at the booth → contact directly in your CRM with event tag, qualification answers, and a sales-rep voice note → AI agents that enrich from 30+ public sources, qualify, and trigger personalised follow-up → executive report. See how Linkly works.

What to do during the 2 days of the fair

Day 1 (Wednesday 26 August), opening

• Team briefing at 8:15 am: review the 3 messages and the roles. Over 2 days there is no second “warm-up” day, you start already calibrated
• Quick calibration: the first 5-10 leads fine-tune the qualification questions, then you run at full speed
• Cover the cross-traffic from maintenance Schweiz: maintenance buyers walk both fairs on one ticket
• At the end of the day, a short debrief: what works, what to fix tomorrow, which hot leads to call back this very evening

Day 2 (Thursday 27 August), closing

At a compact biennial over 2 days, do not expect the classic Thursday drop of long fairs: the second day is still a full day and often brings the decision-makers who only did a walk-through on day one. It is the moment for:

• Closing meetings with hot leads from the first day
• Deeper technical conversations, with those who came back on purpose
• A walk through the hall and maintenance Schweiz: see the competitors, take notes, spot integration partners for next year
• Closing the day knowing that follow-up starts tonight, not Monday: 2 days give you less margin than a long fair

What to do in the 7 days after the fair

The average time between fair and first post-event contact, in manufacturing, is 9 days. Companies that reduce it to under 48 hours close on average far more than the slow competitors. At a 2-day fair this counts double: the prospect’s memory window is extremely tight, and your competitors were in the same hall.

The winning follow-up playbook:

1. Within 24h: personalised email to every qualified lead with timing, budget, decision. No templates: reference one specific thing said at the booth.
2. Within 7 days: assign 1 sales contact per qualified lead. Schedule a specific touchpoint (call, demo, visit), no batch email.
3. Within 14 days: deliver on promises made at the booth (datasheet, quote, sample). Automatically extractable from the sales rep’s voice notes if the system recorded them.
4. Within 30 days: executive report on performance vs target, distribution by sales rep, sector, estimated pipeline. Use it to request next year’s event budget renewal from the CFO, and to decide whether it is worth returning for the next biennial edition.

Practical FAQ

How much does it cost to exhibit at all about automation zürich 2026?

Official prices must be requested from Easyfairs and vary by square footage, position, and package (Easyfairs works largely with turnkey “all-in” packages). As a purely indicative figure for a compact 2-day regional fair, a small all-in stand package typically falls in the order of CHF 6,000 to 15,000 for space plus basic build-out, on top of which you add staff, travel, and materials. These are indicative estimates, not quotes: ask the organiser for the current rate card.

How do you register (exhibitors and visitors)?

Registration goes through the official site. Exhibitors request a quote from Easyfairs; for trade visitors, advance online registration is the standard route. Check the 2026 edition’s conditions on the site.

Only two days: how do you handle the intensity?

By planning. Over 2 days traffic is concentrated and arrives in waves: no marathon shifts, qualify on the spot (not “later”), and follow-up that starts the very evening of day one for hot leads. The fair is short, and so is the prospect’s memory window.

Is the Easyfairs smart badge enough, or do you need more?

The smart badge captures the name but stays in the Easyfairs ecosystem: it does not reach your CRM, does not enrich, does not qualify, does not send follow-up (see section above). To turn scans into pipeline you need a fair → CRM → follow-up system like Linkly.

Is the co-location with maintenance Schweiz worth it?

Yes, it is one of the strong points. Same venue, one ticket: the maintenance/MRO buyer walks into your booth too. If your offering touches reliability, monitoring, spare parts, or service, exploit that cross-flow by positioning both your stand and your messaging for that audience as well.

Page updated ahead of the 2026 edition. For official information and exhibitor/visitor registration please refer to allaboutautomation.de/zuerich.