NeoCon is where the biggest ideas and boldest innovations debut. Explore 400 leading and emerging companies launching thousands of cutting-edge new products.
Exhibitor Spotlight
Andreu World is expanding its showroom in time for NeoCon 2025! In the building since 2006, the award-winning, Spanish commercial furnishings brand will more than double its footprint in THE MART, moving into an expansive new showroom on the building’s third floor. The new 20,000 square-foot suite will serve as the company’s North American flagship and will celebrate Andreu World’s rich heritage
Best of NeoCon 2025 will showcase products across 43 product categories, selected by a diverse jury of leading architects, designers, specifiers, and facility managers with expertise spanning commercial, healthcare, institutional, and hospitality sectors.
Retro-inspired design is making a comeback in hospitality and workspaces and beyond, embracing sumptuous curves for warm, inviting environments. From sculptural seating to fluid architecture, these soft forms blend mid-century elegance with modern comfort.
In today’s workplaces, good acoustic design is key to productivity and well-being. Say what? Exactly—the noise of ringing phones and chatter can be a major distraction. Smart acoustic solutions like sound-absorbing panels and quiet zones create a balanced environment for focus and collaboration. As offices evolve, blending open spaces with sound control is essential for a functional, efficient workplace.
Move aside, monochrome interiors! If you’ve heard of dopamine design, you know bold color is IN, from public and hospitality spaces to offices and homes. Unexpected pops of color can stimulate positive distractions and serve as mental respites in stressful moments. They can energize a community and infuse a sense of joy and fun into any environment.
Modern design is bending the rules, moving beyond sharp edges and straight lines to embrace the soft, flowing allure of curves. This trend is making its mark with everything from circular lounge chairs to sculptural, organic-shaped accent tables. By blending luxury with comfort, curved designs create interiors that feel both elegant and inviting.
NeoCon offers a compelling series of highly topical and inspirational programs. Gain insight and inspiration from foremost design and business experts with a powerful line up of world class presentations and accredited programming.
NeoCon 2025 Programming Registration Opens April 1
This year, NeoCon will offer daily on-site keynotes and featured presentations, a well-rounded roster of virtual and on-site CEU sessions from an impressive roster of leading industry experts, in addition to NeoCon Talks; 20-minute conversations between inspirers, disrupters, leaders, and influencers, both inside and outside the industry.
Monday Keynote - Annie Jean Baptiste, Author, Building for Everyone
Today, innovation in design is critical to the lifeblood of creators, and a top priority for clients and consumers alike. Creating and designing inclusive spaces and experiences doesn't happen by accident. Come learn practical tips and hear relevant use cases to create for multifaceted consumers.
Tuesday Keynote - Alice Rawsthorn, Author of Design as an Attitude and Co-Founder of Design Emergency podcast
Alice Rawsthorn will share her vision of design at NeoCon 2025 as an eclectic, open-ended agent of change that can help us all to live safely, fairly, and prosperously by developing ingenious solutions to the complex social, economic, and ecological challenges we face.
Wednesday Keynote - Chris Barton, Founder & Creator, Shazam
Technology & A.I. are dramatically changing what’s possible in our world. Our challenge as we create new things is to dislodge from the comfort of what we already know. Chris inspires with jaw-dropping stories about creating Shazam and shows how innovation comes from not just an idea, but from a series of insights to overcome obstacles along the way.
Featured Presentation - IIDA Collective Design LIVE: How to Design a More Inclusive Future
What will the future of public space look like – and how will design address the evolving needs of the next generation, starting today? IIDA and our Futurist-in-Residence, Mark Bryan of the Future Today Strategy Group, convene an all-star panel for a research-based exploration of how the spaces of the future can create a sense of welcome and a sense of agency for all.
Featured Presentation - Why Are We Still Talking About Return to Office?
Four years after offices shut down for the pandemic and working from home became commonplace, the debate rages on as to whether employees need to return to a literal office to innovate. For this lively discussion, we’ve assembled perspectives in office design, product design, and digital design who will establish, not just if we are returning to the old way of work, but what a progressive future of work should look like.
Featured Presentation - Back to Office: A Tale of Two Companies
Find out how the upper floors of the Macy’s building were transformed into office space for a food ingredients company and, how an old bank building in Chicago’s Financial District became the new HQ for a software firm. Both were designed to make employees truly want to get back to the office in this post-pandemic work hybrid environment.
Featured Presentation - Integrating Fractal-Based Design for Stress Reduction
Join Dr. Richard Taylor, Anastasija Lesjak and Martijn Lesjak, founding members of the ScienceDesignLab, as they share how they have channeled the power of these intricate, stress-reducing, and repeating patterns found in nature to create fractal-based designs scientifically proven to reduce stress, enhance creativity and promote wellbeing.
Featured Presentation - Brain Works in the Workplace: Decoding Neurodiversity
Achieving neuroinclusion in the workplace requires an integrated corporate culture built upon intentional strategies covering design standards through operational policies. In this feature presentation, subject matter experts will draw upon their deep experience and research to share best practices in designing for a neuroinclusive environment and supporting a neurodivergent workforce.
Featured Presentation - Co-Creating Spaces of Inclusivity and Connectivity with ASIDx10 Collective
Relevant topics such as inclusivity and connectivity are top of mind for interior designers and end users alike when creating spaces of consequence. What do these themes mean when put into action and practice through design? How can we co-create a new definition of design that encompasses these goals?
Featured Presentation - Designing a Better Chicago: A Conversation with 2024 Grantees
Designing a Better Chicago invites residents and visitors to reflect on how design improves civic life. Join the 2025 grant winners (to be announced) as they share their work, the impact they are making on Chicago, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.
NeoCon Talks features thought-provoking 20-minute conversations between industry disruptors, leaders, and influencers on the 7th Floor Exhibit Hall. No additional registration is required.
NeoCon serves as the hub for the commercial design community, uniting its designers, architects, end-users, manufacturers, dealers, service providers, associations, educators, students and media each year in June. Connect with more than 50,000 fellow design professionals from around the world with a non-stop schedule of events and celebrations.
Happy (Together) Hour
Mark your calendars for Tuesday night of NeoCon. Get together with NeoCon Friends and colleagues and enjoy complimentary drinks and live music. Just show your badge!
Design Creates Joy
Color and design can change communities; creating equity, joy and belonging. Experience Project Color Corps’ mission, history and vision at NeoCon 2025. Designed by Gensler, Project Color Corps will host a color pop up in Suite 101 on THE MART’s First Floor.
Join us for NeoCon's after party at the stunning new venue of Secrist Beach, graciously hosted by the Design Museum of Chicago. Let’s raise a toast to another triumphant year of visionary international design and extended a warm welcome to the recipients of the Designing a Better Chicago Award, an impactful program by NeoCon and the Driehaus Foundation.
Now on the NeoCon blog, Von Robinson, award-winning industrial designer and Founder of Play Orbit, explores how healthcare furniture can go beyond function, using design to enhance wellness through comfort, emotion, and connection. Click the link below to learn how design can engage users on emotional, physical, and cognitive levels, using insights from neuroscience and biophilia.
The METROPOLIS Sustainability Lab offers attendees an immersive exhibit and dynamic hub designed to inspire and empower positive change for people and the planet with the latest sustainable design innovations and resources.
In the latest issue of Converge, the magazine of the contract interior tenants in THE MART, officeinsight takes a look at the role of dealers and independent reps. Read the full issue at the link below.
Enjoy the outdoors along the Chicago River and connect with colleagues over lunch or drinks from Marshall’s Landing at THE MART's River Park, presented by Haworth.
BIFMA’s annual breakfast brings together BIFMA members and all conference attendees for the last day NeoCon, offering social and networking opportunities accompanied by an industry-forward presentation. This year the presentation is "Bring Impossible Ideas to Life".
Join INTERIOR DESIGN for an unforgettable evening at the 12th annual HiP Awards, where Editor-in-Chief Cindy Allen will recognize excellence and innovation in commercial design at NeoCon 2025.
IIDA's Revel in Design features prominent international interior designers and global design manufacturers gathering to celebrate the design industry .
