Four industry organizations have formed an alliance that will lead to the combination in November, 2009, of the annual FabTech Interational & AWS Welding Show with the industry trade show known as MetalForm.

The trade show will be held Nov. 15 through Nov. 18, 2009, at Chicago’s McCormick Place.

It will feature exhibitors and manufacturers from the fields of fabricating, tube and pipe, welding and cutting, metalforming, and related processes, and represents the alliance between the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association International, and the American Welding Society who put on the FabTech/AWS Welding Show and the Precision Metalforming Association that sponsors MetalForm.

While the first official combined exhibition will be in November, 2009 the organizations said they will have a "soft start" to the combined show at the 2008 FabTech International & AWS Welding Show, Oct. 6 through Oct. 3 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nev.

The Vegas show will include a MetalForm pavilion, at which innovations in stamping technology will be displayed.

The organizers said they expect to have more than 800 exhibits and nearly 20,000 people from around the world to attend the show in October.

Uniting the industry under one roof is designed to be more inclusive and to add value for the show’s exhibitors and attendees.

The 2009 show is expected to cover 650,000 square feet of space with 1,300 exhibiting companies, becoming a one-stop shop for North America for materials, equipment and services for metalforming, fabricating, tube and pipe, stamping, welding and cutting technologies.

"This alliance will deliver the broadest array of metalforming, fabricating, cutting and joining technologies for manufacturing," said Mark Tomlinson, executive director of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.

In 2010, the FabTech International & AWS Welding Show and MetalForm event will be held Nov. 2 through Nov. 4 in Atlanta, Ga.