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Long Road Back to PACK EXPO

It's been a long time since we've been together for big packaging events. We're ready to roll in Las Vegas.

Matt Reynolds1

I just had a curious encounter with my pre-pandemic self.I was notified by email that I’d be receiving a refund for concert tickets I purchased on Feb. 20, 2020 and had subsequently forgotten. The May 2020 concert never occurred, I have no doubt about that, but they must’ve finally gotten around to refunds. I don’t even mind having floated them a small, interest-free loan for 19 months, since it was a pleasant surprise to discover money was coming my way at all. But the experience got me thinking about that period of uncertainty and naiveté, and how far we’ve come to be here, back at PACK EXPO Las Vegas. Unlike that concert, this is really happening.

It turns out that on the morning of that same date, Feb. 20, 2020—or so my credit card statement would have me believe—I’d booked a flight for 2020’s PACK EXPO East, which I would attend March 3 through 5, 2020, two weeks after purchasing forgettable concert tickets. PACK EXPO East was the first show where hand sanitizer was more of a must than handshakes. There, I recorded an uneasy UnPACKed podcast with my PMMI colleague Sean Riley where I delicately floated the potential for pandemic-based supply chain disruption, particularly coming from Asian countries where the pandemic was centered at the time. Earlier that day at the convention center in Philadelphia, David Smith, a former Johnson & Johnson exec and now a member of Packaging World's editorial advisory board among other projects, had warned me of what was likely to come. It did, and then some.


PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO (Sept. 27-29, Las Vegas Convention Center) will reunite the packaging and processing community. With over 1400 exhibitors, no other event in 2021 will bring together a more comprehensive gathering of suppliers offering new products, technologies and solutions. Attendee registration is now open.

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