The next ISOBUS Plugfest is just around the corner from May 07-09, 2019 in Lincoln, NE. If my quick mental count is correct, this Plugfest is lucky number 13 for me. I first attended in Austria in September 2012 and have been at each Plugfest since … except in 2016 when I had to miss the spring event due to a freak medical issue. In the seven years I have been attending, AEF has almost doubled in membership, hundreds of products have been AEF certified, and Plugfests have lengthened from two to three days each.
After all the 10-year anniversary activities at the Plugfest last fall in Italy, next month’s event will have relatively few activities other than the Plugfest itself. As usual, some of the project teams are having face-to-face meetings, and the traditional Wednesday Plugfest dinner will happen again, but otherwise there are no formal activities. So for the first time in a long time, I will have the opportunity to spend almost the whole Plugfest at the Plugfest itself and not in other meetings. If you will be there and want to chat, look me up. I plan to get to town Monday evening and will be staying for the PT3 meeting Friday.
The early info I saw showed about 60 planned participants for this Plugfest, roughly 30 each for clients and servers – aka implements and displays, respectively. That is a similar size to other recent Lincoln Plugfests. DISTek will again be participating as a UT server with our VT Anywhere application. We are not participating directly with VIRTEC on the client side, but three of our VIRTEC customers will be participating so we will still get some good feedback.
If you work in a role involving electronics or technology for Ag equipment, you should come to a Plugfest to see how international standards are enabling equipment compatibility. Or if you work in an adjacent industry and want to see how the Ag industry works together across manufacturers and competitors, you owe it to yourself to attend Plugfest. If you are unable to make it to one in Lincoln, there are various European locations that host Plugfests in the fall of the year. The next one will be in the French Riviera in September in case that is more your speed than Nebraska.
