North America’s leading tunnelling event, the Rapid Excavation and Tunnelling Conference, returned to Chicago last month, hosting one of the largest gatherings of mining industry leaders and practitioners from around the world.

Attended by more than 1,400 industry personnel and hosting 200 booths, the bi-annual underground construction conference took place at the city’s Hyatt Regency hotel from 16-19 June.

The event offered industry leaders and mining personnel the chance to connect with a diverse, global audience and ran a programme that included specialist speakers, networking opportunities, and technical tours.

For Carroll Technologies Group, RETC 2019 was the company’s first event as a vendor.

Sales account manager Josh Johnson said: “RETC exceeded our overall expectations as to the number of quality conversations we were able to have with attendees. Ninety percent of the individuals who stopped at our booth are potential customers we have never done business with and this show gave us the opportunity to meet them, discuss what products are working or not working for them, and be able to give them a solution forward.

“RETC exceeded our overall expectations as to the number of quality conversations we were able to have with attendees”

“The information we gathered in just a few days would have taken months or longer to find and research on our own.”

The company now plans to attend the event’s sister show next year, the North American Tunnelling Conference (NAT 2020), in Nashville, Tennessee.

Held from 7-10 June, the event will focus on the developments, innovations, issues and trends affecting underground construction and tunnelling.

NAT 2020 aims to bring together the “brightest, resourceful and innovative minds” of the tunnelling industry, providing important opportunities to make business contacts. The four-day event is expected to attract 1,000 industry professionals from operations all around the world, with 140 exhibitors demonstrating the latest innovations, and 20 planned technical sessions.