As Manifest 2026 draws to a close, Senior Vice President of Industry Relations and Strategic Initiatives, Manifest, Katie Date reflects on record-breaking engagement, the accelerating impact of AI, and how the fast-growing event continues to unite the global supply chain community. Plus, an exciting announcement that will see Manifest’s influence spread even wider…
As the exhibition halls begin to quiet and the final meetings wrap up, the sense of momentum surrounding Manifest 2026 remains unmistakable. The event has once again positioned itself as a focal point for the global logistics and supply chain community, bringing together shippers, carriers, technology providers, investors and startups under one roof for several days of intensive networking and knowledge exchange.
For Katie Date, Senior Vice President of Industry Relations and Strategic Initiatives, the energy is the clearest measure of success. “It feels great,” she says as the event draws to a close. “This year has been so successful on so many different fronts. The energy in Manifest has truly been palpable. You just walk around and you can feel the buzz.”
That buzz is measurable as well as visible. Manifest’s proprietary badge technology tracks interactions across the venue, revealing the scale of engagement. “As of this morning,” Date explains, “our click to connect Qlik technology had recorded over 75,000 connections. By the end of today, I’m sure we’ll have surpassed 100,000 connections. We had almost 7,500 people check in to be a part of Manifest, which is just huge growth.”
For the organisers, those interactions are the event’s defining metric. “Really how we measure success here at Manifest is on those connections,” she says. “To see so many people making valuable connections really is a great measure of success.”
A platform for the entire ecosystem
From its earliest iteration, Manifest has been designed to serve the full supply chain ecosystem rather than any single segment. That founding principle continues to guide the event’s expansion. “I think we’ve done a very good job of staying close to the original vision, which was to serve the entire supply chain ecosystem,” says Date. “We’re not an event that’s just focusing on shippers or carriers or third-party logistics providers. We’re bringing them all together. We’re bringing in investors and startups. We’re creating almost three days of content and exhibition that really give them an opportunity to interact and create value.”
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