Our Story

TCT has been part of the additive manufacturing industry almost from the very beginning. In 1996, we launched Europe's first dedicated 3D printing event here in the UK, and for thirty years we've grown alongside the technology and the people driving it forward.

Through every stage of the technology's journey, from rapid prototyping through the consumer boom to industrialised production, we've been in the room with the innovators, researchers and users shaping it.

Our UK event became the world's largest additive manufacturing show in 2014. From there, we took the technology to a mass audience as the 3D printing conference organiser CES in Las Vegas, built partnerships behind RAPID + TCT in the USA and TCT Japan in Tokyo, and formed a joint venture in China that produces TCT Asia, now the largest dedicated additive manufacturing event in the world.

That vantage point has taught us what the industry needs, and how those needs change. Today, additive manufacturing is an established part of the manufacturing toolkit. As these technologies have matured, however, the challenges have also evolved. Scaling production, justifying cost, qualifying parts and integrating AM into real businesses - those problems are complex, and solving them takes time and honest conversations.

We've already seen what that looks like through the TCT UK User Group. Over the last five years, those sessions, which have brought dozens of users together in an open exchange of knowledge and problem solving, have proved that the most valuable learning often happens in conversation rather than in front of a slide deck.