It was after a two-plus year, covid-driven hiatus from trade shows that I returned to an industry exhibition at an unlikely location.

Rather than my usual event “home base” at Chicago’s McCormick Place, my re-debut exactly two weeks ago today occurred about 750 miles east at the Charlotte Convention Center in North Carolina.

There, nearly 2,300 industry professionals gathered at IME South June 14-16, which brought together five events under one roof including SouthPack. It’s managed by Packaging Digest’s parent company, Informa.

It was a great feeling to attend a physical event again.

My focus was one of my favorite editorial assignments: treasure hunting for what’s new and what’s interesting as I walked the show floor of more than 300 booths. I narrowed these to the eight seen in the accompanying slideshow gallery, which centers on packaging container/material and machinery and automation markets.