Orlando, Saturday, 22 November 2025.
IAAPA Expo 2025 ended last Friday in Orlando with a record-breaking turnout that drew the industry’s largest-ever verified audience, signaling a clear acceleration in cross-border procurement and partnership activity. Attendance reached 38,520 verified attendees and 28,598 qualified buyers from over 100 countries, concentrating operators, suppliers and investors across ride manufacturing, guest-experience tech, operations consulting and IP licensing. China’s Chimelong Group recorded a prominent presence, underscoring renewed outbound engagement by Asian park operators with Western vendors. On the show floor and in education sessions, capital priorities for 2026 coalesced around safety systems, robotics, immersive media and large-scale dark rides, while Brass Ring winners and product debuts pointed to near-term project pipelines. For retail and on-site operators, the Expo acted as both market barometer and deal-flow accelerator: expect an uptick in announced projects and strategic collaborations within the next 12–18 months as global procurement shifts from exploration to execution and revenue growth.
Scale and scope: a new attendance benchmark
IAAPA reports that Expo 2025 closed with 38,520 verified attendees out of 43,840 registered participants, and that the trade show floor hosted 28,598 qualified buyers representing 20,316 buying companies from more than 100 countries across 550,000 square feet of exhibit space [1]. The verified-attendee share of registrants can be calculated as 87.865 percent, illustrating unusually high on-the-ground conversion for a global trade show [1]. These figures position the event as the largest verified audience in IAAPA’s history and frame the Expo as a concentrated marketplace where operators, suppliers and investors transact and benchmark priorities [1].
Chimelong and the signal from Asian operators
IAAPA’s exhibitor listings and coverage note a prominent presence by major Asian operators at Expo 2025, including China’s Chimelong Group, signaling renewed outbound engagement by park operators from Asia with Western suppliers and technology vendors [6][1]. The physical presence of large operators on the show floor helps convert exploratory buyer-supplier conversations into procurement pipelines because in-person technical reviews and commercial negotiations remain essential for complex capital projects such as large-scale rides and dark attractions [6][1].
Product pipeline cues from Brass Ring winners and new concepts
The Expo’s Brass Ring Awards and Best New Product winners provide concrete signals about near-term procurement activity: winners included ride concepts and advanced systems such as Mack Rides’ ‘The Rocking Boat’ (Impact Award) and concept winners like Simtec Systems’ HEXaPOT® Dark Ride and Brogent’s o‑Ride X, each pointing to investments in immersive, story-driven attractions and energy-efficient motion platforms [2][5]. Awarded winners across technology and facilities categories — from DOF Robotics’ exhibit recognition to consumer tech winners such as SmarteLocke™ Locker — underscore supplier readiness to sell robotics, guest-management systems and immersive media into the next wave of park investments [2][5].
Dealflow sectors: where capital appears to be moving
On the show floor and in vendor briefings, common themes coalesced around four capital priorities for 2026: safety and control systems, robotics and automation, immersive media and large-scale dark rides — categories reflected both in product debuts and in exhibitor awards [1][2][4][5]. Suppliers with award-winning concepts and booths are effectively showcasing validated prototypes and reference use-cases, shortening procurement timelines for operators seeking turnkey or co-developed solutions [2][5][4].
WhiteWater and water-park momentum as a cross-sector indicator
WhiteWater used its IAAPA press conference to highlight a global slate of water-park and surf-lagoon projects that together illustrate how manufacturers are converting Expo attention into contract pipelines — examples cited include recent and planned projects in Mexico, Brazil, The Bahamas and the US, and multiple forthcoming Endless Surf lagoon projects [4][5]. Such announcements demonstrate that manufacturers are both delivering large, capital-intensive installations and marketing modular product lines (e.g., surf lagoons) that can scale across venue types, an indicator of diversified revenue streams for suppliers [4][5].
From exploration to execution: expected timing for project announcements
Given the concentration of qualified buyers (28,598) and the presence of major operators and investor delegations at the Expo, industry participants should expect an uptick in announced projects and strategic collaborations in the coming 12–18 months as procurement moves from vendor evaluation to contracting and construction [1][6][4]. [alert! ‘projection based on the historical pattern in which trade-show engagement typically translates into formal project announcements within 12–18 months; exact timing varies by project size and financing arrangements’]
Regional programs and buyer aggregation as multipliers
IAAPA’s region-focused programs — for example, the sold-out ‘IAAPA Explores: Brazil’ program during the Expo — function as buyer-aggregation mechanisms that increase the efficiency of international dealmaking by concentrating regional delegations and curated B2B programming, thereby accelerating cross-border procurement conversations and partnership formation [3][1].
Implications for suppliers, operators and investors
For ride manufacturers, themed-entertainment suppliers and technology vendors, the Expo’s size and mix of attendees imply stronger near-term demand for engineered attractions and integrated guest-technology stacks; for operators, the event reduced sourcing friction for large capital projects by enabling side‑by‑side technical evaluation and partnership negotiations; and for investors, the concentrated visibility into product-market fit and order books provides a clearer lens on where capital allocation may prove productive in 2026 [1][2][4]. These assertions are grounded in the Expo’s attendance composition and the nature of awarded innovations showcased across exhibitors [1][2][4].
Bronnen