Uptime’s Takeaways from Hamburg 2026

Matthew Stead (0:00)

Every time Rosie walked past a QR code with a prize of Lego, she had to enter. I'm not quite sure whether Rosie was actually entering her real name.

Rosemary Barnes (0:12)

Oh, it's like a hundred different fake emails. Yeah, and I also do think I could grab one and run, but I was considering it, because I've been to a few of these events now, and I would have entered probably 20 competitions and I never win.

Allen Hall (0:29)

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Yolanda Padron (0:36)

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Allen Hall (0:39)

Now, your hosts.

Welcome to The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm Allen Hall, and I'm here with Rosemary Barnes, Yolanda Padron, and Matthew Stead. And this has been a busy week because everybody's been, well, Matthew and Rosemary have been in Hamburg for the big Wind Energy Hamburg show. Organizers there expect 43,000 people from 100 countries to attend. There's roughly 1,600 companies and booths on the show floor.

This is the big show, right? Everybody knows this is the big show and this is the one to go to. Matthew, you were with E-Logix Ping for the week in the booth there. How did it go? Well, how was it?

Matthew Stead (1:24)

I don't think I've talked for 8 hours a day for 3 days in a row ever. So, it was crazy. So, there was so many people there. I think there was some mixed feelings. So, there was a lot of positive vibe about what's going on and how the industry is progressing and doing better. But at the same time, there were sort of negative comments about late Germany next year. We were really expecting a big drop in the number of installations. So, it was quite a mixed bag. But personally, I loved seeing old friends.

Allen Hall (1:58)

And Rosemary, you were not tied to a booth, so you could wander around a little bit more. What did you see in here at the show?

Rosemary Barnes (2:05)

I have actually learned what a booth is for now though, because if you don't have a booth, then you have to like just go from, you try and meet people and you have to navigate your way through the system. And you can't actually make appointments because you chat, you run into somebody and then you chat to someone and like you think I'll talk to everyone for five minutes, but you end up talking for 15 or 20 minutes. And yeah, so lots of walking. But I've seen heaps. I love these exhibitions, you know, when they've got that a lot of them have displays. So, you know, like there's a real, a real winch in there. I can't remember what company it was from, but it's like a real winch that's been in service for a long time. And, you know, you can go get a sense for that scale, real bits of rope. Oh, so many robots, so many robots and drones. Yeah, all kinds of varieties of robots and drones, which I love. Lots of them doing very useful things. I don't know what else about, yeah, every other stand has some one of my ex-colleagues from LM Wind Power standing in it and a wide variety of industries. So that's kind of cool. I actually had some really, really great conversations with old colleagues and yeah, they always learn a lot from that.

Yeah, I don't know. It's been good. Lots of free ice cream as well. Yeah, free ice cream, free coffees, good coffees.

Allen Hall (3:32)

What were the good handouts this year? What were the free giveaways that everybody was distributing?

Rosemary Barnes (3:36)

There's a lot of chocolates and it's quite easy to just grab handfuls of chocolate.

Matthew Stead (3:42)

Weather Dice, is there lightning today or is it windy?

Allen Hall (3:50)

Who was offering that, Matthew?

Matthew Stead (3:53)

This is GWU.

Allen Hall (3:55)

All right, that's a neat hand out giveaway, right?

Matthew Stead (4:00)

Great company.

Allen Hall (4:01)

Were they auctioning off any cars or anything that was like super impressive? A million dollars?

Matthew Stead (4:07)

Oh, I got to tell a story. Like every time Rosie walked past like a QR code with a prize of Lego, she had to enter. Yeah.

I'm not quite sure. I'm not quite sure whether Rosie was actually entering her real name or like a fake name.

Rosemary Barnes (4:24)

Oh, it's like a hundred different fake emails.

Matthew Stead (4:27)

Yeah.

Rosemary Barnes (4:28)

Yeah. And I also every time try and convince them to just give it to me.