About Motek
Stuttgart is home to Motek, the international trade fair for production and assembly automation, held at Messe Stuttgart and organised by P. E. Schall GmbH & Co. KG. It runs alongside Bondexpo, a specialist fair for bonding technology, and the two together cover a large part of the joining and assembly process.
The show's focus is practical. Exhibitors present production and assembly automation, feed technology and material flow, handling systems, robotics, drive and control components, sensors and vision, and the software that ties these elements together. Many stands feature working machinery, as automation is far easier to sell when a visitor can watch it run.
Visitors are mainly manufacturing decision makers, design and production engineers, and automation specialists from industrial sectors. They typically arrive with a specific problem in mind, such as raising throughput, reducing manual handling or integrating a new process, and want to talk it through with suppliers in technical detail.
Location helps. Stuttgart sits in one of Germany's strongest manufacturing regions, with a dense base of automotive, machine building and engineering firms within easy reach. A single ticket also gives visitors free entry to the other fairs taking place at the exhibition centre at the same time, broadening the mix of people moving through the halls.
For automation suppliers, integrators and component makers, Motek offers focused contact with engineers who are close to purchasing decisions, together with the opportunity to show equipment working in front of them.
Show recap
How Motek 2026 went
Motek's 43rd edition and the 18th Bondexpo shared hall 6 at Messe Stuttgart from 6 to 8 October 2026, and P. E. Schall reported 152 exhibitors and 6,385 expert visitors for the combined event. New this time was the simultaneous staging of VISION, the image processing fair, in neighbouring halls 8 and 10, while the new EFX expo for electronics manufacturing took hall 9. The organiser presented the line-up as a way for visitors to follow the whole process chain, from inspection through to assembly and bonding, in a single trip.
Presentation forum sessions on AI in image processing, digital worker guidance, AI-assisted inspection and mobile robots working outdoors were reported as full. Exhibitors quoted by the organiser, among them MAFU, Maddox AI, Vision4Quality and Asyril, described focused technical enquiries, and Asyril noted rising customer demand for low-volume, high-mix production with plug-and-play integration. Managing director Bettina Schall said the edition showed that trade fairs remain extremely important. With Motek now on a two-year cycle, the next edition is scheduled for 24 to 26 October 2028.
Next edition
Motek 2028: what to expect
The 44th Motek is scheduled for 24 to 26 October 2028 at Messe Stuttgart, with Bondexpo running alongside it again. It will be the first edition since the fair switched to a two-year rhythm, so suppliers have a longer gap than usual between launches. For reference, P. E. Schall reported 152 exhibitors and 6,385 expert visitors at the 2026 Motek and Bondexpo, which shared hall 6 and coincided with the VISION fair and the new EFX electronics expo in adjacent halls. Whether those fairs will overlap again in 2028 has not been announced.
A biennial cycle gives exhibitors time to plan a properly working demonstration rather than a static display. Agree machine weights, compressed air, power and guarding with your builder early, and set aside a seated corner for the detailed technical conversations Motek visitors tend to bring.