From The Editor | June 12, 2026

An Attendee's Guide To ACE26

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By Kevin Westerling,
@KevinOnWater

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What to expect, where to focus, and how to get the most from AWWA’s flagship water event.

The American Water Works Association’s Annual Conference & Exposition (ACE26) returns June 21–24, 2026, in Washington, D.C., bringing together one of the largest gatherings of water professionals.

For first-time attendees, ACE can feel enormous. Between technical sessions, committee meetings, networking events, and the exhibit hall, it’s easy to spend three or four days busy without accomplishing what you came for. The key is knowing where to focus before you get there.

The official theme for 2026 is “Water Heroes,” recognizing the people who keep systems running. Themes aside, most attendees are there for a simpler reason — to see what their peers are doing and whether any of it is worth borrowing.

Here’s how attendees should think about navigating ACE26 before stepping onto the show floor.

Core Focus Areas: What’s Driving The Program

The ACE26 technical program reflects the industry’s most urgent priorities. Educational tracks include:

  • Water quality challenges and regulatory compliance
  • PFAS and emerging contaminants
  • Lead and copper rule implementation
  • Infrastructure management and capital planning
  • Utility risk, resilience, and emergency preparedness
  • Workforce development and leadership
  • Intelligent water and digital systems
  • Water reuse and long-term resource planning
  • The “Water 2050” vision for future systems

Looking across the agenda, it’s hard to miss what utilities are wrestling with right now. PFAS remains front and center, lead service line (LSL) replacement is moving from planning to execution, and many systems are still trying to balance infrastructure investment with workforce shortages and budget realities.

Must-Attend Anchor Events

Opening General Session

The conference officially kicks off Monday morning with a keynote from water author and journalist Charles Fishman. Fishman has spent years translating complex water issues for broader audiences — particularly with The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water — making him a fitting choice to open a conference focused on both current challenges and the industry’s long-term future.

Exhibit Hall Experience

Open June 22-24, the exhibit hall is a central hub where attendees can:

  • Evaluate new technologies and equipment
  • Meet vendors across every category (treatment, distribution, digital, services)
  • Compare solutions side-by-side in a single visit
  • Visit Water Online at booth 2166

Competitions & Industry Culture

ACE blends technical rigor with community engagement through well-known competitions, including:

  • Pipe-tapping contests
  • Top Ops operator challenges
  • Tap water taste tests

Beyond the technical program, these competitions remind attendees that water is still a hands-on profession. They’re also among the most entertaining events on the ACE schedule.

High-Value Opportunities For Attendees

1. Education You Can Apply Immediately

ACE offers hundreds of technical sessions and workshops, many tied directly to system operations, compliance, and asset management.

Attendees can earn certificates of completion and continuing education credits, making sessions particularly valuable for operators and licensed professionals.

Pre-conference workshops and facility tours provide deeper, hands-on learning — though these fill quickly and often require additional registration.

2. Direct Access to Solutions in the Exhibit Hall

Even if you never sit through a technical session, the exhibit hall alone can justify the trip. It’s one of the few places where utility staff can compare equipment, software platforms, engineering services, and treatment technologies side by side without spending months scheduling vendor meetings.

It’s also easy to underestimate how much time you’ll spend there. Between vendor meetings, product demonstrations, and chance encounters with colleagues, many attendees find themselves returning to the exhibit hall multiple times throughout the week.

Expect to find:

  • Treatment and filtration technologies
  • Pipe, valve, and infrastructure solutions
  • Digital tools and asset management platforms
  • Engineering, consulting, and compliance services

For utilities planning capital upgrades or pilots, this is an opportunity to compress months of vendor outreach into a few days.

3. Networking That Impacts Real Work

ACE is built around structured and informal networking opportunities, including:

Some of the most useful conversations happen between sessions or while walking the exhibit floor. It's a surprisingly candid crowd — ask someone how a project went and you'll usually get an honest answer, not a sales pitch.

4. Workforce & Career Development

This year’s conference puts visible emphasis on workforce issues, including:

Workforce challenges aren’t going away anytime soon, which is why career development and recruitment have become much more visible parts of the conference in recent years.

A Few Tips For First-Time Attendees

  • Don’t try to attend everything.
  • Pick two or three priority topics before arriving.
  • Schedule exhibit hall time in advance.
  • Leave room for unexpected conversations.
  • Wear comfortable shoes.

Most veterans will tell you the same thing: the schedule always looks more manageable before you arrive.

Why ACE26 Matters In 2026

Few industry events bring operators, utility executives, engineers, regulators, consultants, and vendors together in the same place at the same scale.

After a few days at ACE, most attendees leave with the realization that nearly every utility is facing some version of the same challenges, even if the details look different from city to city.

Getting the most out of ACE26 means giving our “water heroes” some extra tools in their utility belt to overcome those challenges and better serve their home communities.