PCB East 2026 combined nonstop show-floor traffic, technical learning and after-hours networking into one of the event’s busiest and most connected years yet.

Trade shows have always had two versions of themselves.

There’s the official one: conference sessions, booth demos, technical discussions, product launches and meetings squeezed between coffee runs and glances at schedules. Then there’s the version that starts forming somewhere around the end of expo day, when people finally loosen their lanyards a little, gather in groups outside the venue and continue the exact same conversations they’d been having all day – just with food and slightly louder laughter.

PCB East 2026 felt like both versions operating at full speed. And honestly, I think Worcester had a lot to do with that.

The move to the DCU Center gave PCB East a noticeably different energy this year. The facility itself was an upgrade: open hallways, better traffic flow, bright spaces, conference rooms that were easy to locate and an exhibit hall that somehow managed to be packed without ever feeling claustrophobic. Attendance numbers reflected it too, with overall attendance up nearly 48% year-over-year and conference attendance climbing 38%.

Figure 1. Attendees packed the PCB East 2026 exhibition floor at the DCU Center in Worcester, where conversations, handshakes and impromptu reunions kept traffic moving from booth to booth throughout expo day.

The downtown location changed the rhythm of the show. Restaurants stayed full of engineers and fabricators long after sessions ended. Small groups formed naturally on sidewalks and at crosswalks. Conversations that started at booths somehow continued three hours later over appetizers. The after-hours atmosphere felt less like people escaping the conference and more like the conference simply spilling outward into the city.

And the people willing to spend all day talking to strangers on a busy trade show floor? Unsurprisingly, they were also the exact same people brave enough to grab a karaoke microphone later that night.

At one point, I remember standing on the third floor of the DCU Center looking across the street and noticing a glowing karaoke sign. I joked to a few people nearby that we should absolutely go after the expo wrapped up. It was one of those passing comments you make, expecting it to disappear into the noise of the evening.

Except this industry apparently operates on the most efficient game of telephone ever created.

The next day, people kept approaching me asking, “So ... are we doing karaoke tonight?”

And somehow the message had fully circled back to me without a single distortion. Just pure, high-speed PCB industry communication infrastructure at work.

That openness is something I keep noticing the more shows I attend. Back in our November issue, I wrote about how trade shows remind us that none of us works in this industry alone. I thought that feeling was strong then. PCB East somehow amplified it even further.

You’ll spend ten minutes talking impedance control with someone, only to discover twenty minutes later that they also know three people you spoke with at lunch and one person you met six months ago at another event entirely. Information moves quickly in this industry, but kindness somehow moves even faster.

People continue to be incredibly generous with their time, advice, introductions and encouragement. At this point, I’m not even sure I get addressed by my actual name most of the time anymore. It’s usually just, “Oh, you!” followed immediately by a conversation already in progress.

Of course, there was still the usual trade show chaos mixed in with everything else.

The show floor traffic barely slowed down all day. Every aisle seemed full from the moment the exhibition opened. You’d stop to talk to one person and accidentally look up 20 minutes later, standing in the middle of a completely different conversation than the one you started in.

I kept having the same recurring panic all week: realizing there were still dozens of people I wanted to catch up with before the show ended. Which, let’s be honest, is probably inevitable when your natural instinct is to continue talking indefinitely.

The technical side of the conference reflected that same energy. The exhibit hall stayed busy throughout the day with designers, assemblers, fabricators, students, software companies, test engineers and manufacturers all moving through the same space at once.

Figure 2. Rick Hartley’s sessions once again drew packed rooms at PCB East 2026, as attendees gathered for practical design guidance from one of the industry’s most recognizable instructors.

And then there were the moments that had absolutely nothing to do with PCB design whatsoever, but somehow still became part of the memory of the show.

Cofactr’s after-hours arcade gathering turned into an unexpectedly competitive proving ground. I’m happy to report that I successfully claimed victory in arcade motorcycle racing. Unfortunately, I must also transparently disclose that Dance Dance Revolution and race car simulators humbled me almost immediately.

Some losses build character. Others simply build witnesses.

By the end of the week, the days had blurred together in the strange way trade shows always do. The hours moved fast. The conversations moved faster. Somehow, you’re constantly exhausted and energized at the exact same time.

And that’s probably the best way I can describe PCB East 2026 overall. The event felt alive.

Not just professionally successful – though it absolutely was – but genuinely alive in the way only strong industry communities can feel when everyone is fully engaged at once. The venue upgrade helped. The attendance growth helped. The nonstop traffic certainly helped. But the real heartbeat of the show was still the people willing to keep showing up for each other year after year.

The Yearbook Effect

A few days after I got home, my PCB East card from Zenode ended up sitting on my desk. You know the one – the custom Titan cards everyone was lining up for on the show floor. Mine happened to feature a photo of me in a blazer, professionally lit and looking significantly more organized than I usually am.

My four-year-old son spotted it almost immediately. He picked it up, stared at it for a second, then looked at me with complete sincerity and said, “That doesn’t look like you.”

Which, honestly, was devastating in the funniest possible way. Especially because, at the time, I had just gotten home from a workout, with my hair doing things no brush could reasonably fix and wearing gym clothes anchored by a decade-old Braves T-shirt my father gave me years ago. Standing there next to the polished version of myself on that badge photo felt less like “business professional” and more like catching a glimpse of an alter ego I apparently only unlock near convention centers.

What can I say, kids are honest.

I assured him that yes, it was in fact me. That’s just apparently what I look like when I go on work trips and briefly transform into a person who owns multiple blazers and willingly wears plaid pants in public.

To prove it, I pulled up photos from our new PCB East yearbooks – one of my favorite additions to this year’s event. What started as us simply taking too many photos turned into something bigger: a snapshot of the community itself. Conversations on the show floor. Friends reconnecting. Speakers teaching packed rooms. Booth teams posing together after long days. Tiny moments that would’ve otherwise disappeared once the booths came down.

Figure 3. The NCAB Group team’s matching shirts and energy were captured in the PCB East 2026 Yearbook.

So I sat there scrolling through photo after photo.

“There’s me in another blazer.” “There’s me pretending I know how to take a selfie.” “There’s me standing next to people I’ve talked about all week.” “Yes, somehow the plaid pants happened more than once.”

And the funniest part was watching him slowly realize that this whole other world exists when I leave for these events. To him, I’m just Mom working from home, typing at a laptop while occasionally muttering about deadlines and trying to remember where I left my coffee. Trade shows probably sounded imaginary.

But those yearbook photos captured something I’ve started appreciating more every time I attend one of these events: this industry feels incredibly human.

Behind all the technical discussions, challenges and packed schedules are people who genuinely enjoy seeing each other again. People who stay connected between shows. People who welcome new faces quickly. People who somehow turn a professional conference into a place where a karaoke plan can spread across an entire industry in under 24 hours.

And now, apparently, people who unintentionally convinced my son that I secretly live a double life in business casual sweaters.

Maybe that’s part of what makes these events stick with me long after the flights home and unpacked suitcases. The yearbooks preserve the people inside the conference. The laughter between sessions. The conversations that ran long. The familiar faces that somehow start feeling like part of your routine.

And somewhere between the show floor photos and my son realizing I apparently own nicer clothes than he thought, I found myself appreciating something simple: for a few days each year, this industry becomes a place you can physically walk through. A place full of voices, personalities, friendships and stories – all moving faster than the crowd at the front door.

Ryann Howard is managing editor of PCD&F/Circuits Assembly; ryann@pcea.net.