Critical Facilities Summit Makes Minneapolis Memorable for the Mission Critical Industry

November 20, 2017 — Milwaukee and Minneapolis — The 5th annual Critical Facilities Summit held October 23-25 at the Minneapolis Convention Center turned out to be an incredible experience attracting mission critical FMs, data center managers, design engineers, operations managers, consultants, construction managers, and executives from 42 states, Washington D.C., and many foreign countries including Albania, Belgium, Brazil and Canada.

The Critical Facilities Summit (CFS) Expo Hall was filled with hundreds of high-level decision makers. The typical CFS attendee spends $4.9 million annually on the renovation or construction of their mission critical facilities. CFS exhibitors noted the exceptional buying power of the attendees with one long-time exhibitor saying that a CFS lead generates a $500,000 sale while a lead from another FM event yields a $150,000 sale. That's more than 3x as big.

Exhibitors gave the 2017 Summit high marks for making Minneapolis a memorable experience. Tom Hurley, Application Engineer from Degree Controls Inc. remarked, "I was unsure of the Minneapolis market but after performing my event due diligence I was stunned by the size and receptiveness of this market. Great show venue and plenty of high quality interactions between vendors and end users. Very little effort was needed to engage in real world situational dialogues. I look forward to exhibiting in Nashville and a successful 2018 event."

Summit conferees found the 2-1/2 day Summit to be a perfect use of their time. Charles Canny, Director of Facilities with the Noble Research Institute said, "CFS is an excellent conference to gain timely, useful critical facilities management information that should be attended by IT and FM colleagues together if possible." The importance of the FM and IT connection was echoed by many attendees including Doreene Lorenzen, IT Manager with Hennepin County, who noted "the Critical Facilities Summit did a great job of advocating for the collaborative efforts between IT and FM: we need them and they need us. People working in any realm of critical facilities support will benefit from this summit." Brian Rients probably summed the 2017 Summit up best saying, "if you're responsible for a critical facility and everything in it, this is the conference for you."

At press time, a record number of exhibitors have reserved space at Critical Facilities Summit 2018 taking place October 14-16 at the Nashville Music Center. For more information about the event, visit CriticalFacilitiesSummit.com or call Laurie Vega at 414-228-7701 ext. 482.

About Trade Press Media Group
Trade Press Media Group is a media company serving the facilities, commercial cleaning and railroad industries. Trade Press Media Group co-owns the NFMT (National Facilities Management and Technology) family of shows, NFMTInsider, Smnart Building Innovations Conference and the Critical Facilities Summit. The firm also publishes Building Operating Management and Facility Maintenance Decisions magazines and owns FacilitiesNet, the premier website for building owners and facilities managers and Healthcare Facilities Today, an online resource providing information and insight for the healthcare facility team. More than 150,000 facility professionals rely on these information products to help them manage and operate their buildings at peak efficiency.

About ROC Exhibitions, Inc.
ROC Exhibitions, Inc., co-owner of the NFMT (National Facilities Management and Technology) family of shows, NFMT 360 and the Critical Facilities Summit, is a leading event management company headquartered in Lisle, IL. The firm owns and manages a number of industry-leading events including the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) Conference & Expo, Fire Mexico, DRI International and the Midwest Security & Police Conference/Expo.