World of Asphalt 2027

Annual event for the asphalt manufacturing, paving, and maintenance sectors featuring an equipment expo, technical sessions, and networking.

World of Asphalt 2027

World of Asphalt runs March 15–17, 2027 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, 900 Convention Center Blvd, New Orleans.

Show hours are 9am to 5pm on Monday and Tuesday, and 9am to 2pm on Wednesday. The short final day is worth planning around — a Wednesday flight booked for late afternoon wastes most of a day that ends at two.

What it is

World of Asphalt covers asphalt production, paving and road maintenance. AGG1, the aggregates industry's show, is co-located with it, and the two run as one event across a single floor.

The show has three owners: the National Asphalt Pavement Association, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, and the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association. That explains the breadth of the floor — it is not one association's show with a guest attached.

The floor

The organiser's exhibitor directory lists more than 450 manufacturers, across four broad areas: aggregate, asphalt, pavement maintenance and traffic safety.

Equipment demonstrations run through the show rather than being confined to a single stage, which is the usual reason people come in person to a heavy-equipment show at all.

The conference

The education programme is a named event in its own right: the People, Plants, and Paving Conference, organised into five tracks.

• People — the skills involved in getting more out of a crew.
• Plants — evaluating and improving plant performance and operations.
• Paving — techniques for building safe, smooth, quality pavements.
• Pavement Preservation & Maintenance — extending pavement life, including seal coats and crack sealing.
• Environment, Health, Safety & Sustainability — practices for building an EHS&S culture.

The organiser describes around 120 education sessions across the programme.

Two practical things about the conference

It is a separate ticket. Education is not included with show admission; tickets can be bought on site.

Seating is first-come, first-served. Sessions have general admission seating and the organiser's own advice is to choose sessions as you go, so a tight schedule between a session and a stand appointment is a risk rather than a plan.

Attendees earn Professional Development Hours by completing session evaluations, and the PDH certificate is emailed afterwards — which matters if you need the hours for a licence renewal and are deciding whether the separate ticket pays for itself.

Before you go

The show publishes video and photo recaps of the previous event, including day-by-day recaps for all three days. They are the cheapest way to judge whether the floor is worth the trip before committing to it.

AGG1 is co-located, so asphalt and aggregates share one floor.

Three show owners — NAPA, AEM and NSSGA.

450+ manufacturers in the organiser's exhibitor directory, across aggregate, asphalt, pavement maintenance and traffic safety.

The People, Plants, and Paving Conference — five tracks, around 120 sessions, earning PDHs.

Education is a separate ticket, with first-come seating.

Short final day — Wednesday closes at 2pm.

The organiser aims the programme at manufacturers and service providers across the aggregate, asphalt, pavement maintenance and traffic safety sectors. In practice that means:

Paving contractors — owners, estimators and crew supervisors, for whom the Paving and People tracks are built.

Asphalt plant operators and managers, who have a track of their own.

Aggregates producers, via the co-located AGG1.

Public agency staff — state and municipal engineers who specify and inspect the work.

Equipment dealers and rental fleets, comparing full product lines in one place.

Quality control and materials technicians, particularly for the preservation and maintenance sessions.

Anyone needing PDHs. The sessions carry them, which changes the arithmetic on the separate education ticket.

The exhibitor base is heavy equipment and the systems that run it, spread across the four areas the directory uses.

Asphalt plant manufacturers and component suppliers.

Paving, compaction and milling equipment.

Aggregates processing — crushing, screening, conveying — reaching the AGG1 audience from the same floor.

Pavement preservation — seal coats, crack sealing, rejuvenators.

Traffic safety products, one of the directory's four named categories and easy to overlook.

Trucks and material transfer.

Testing, instrumentation and quality control.

Software for fleet, plant and project management.

Two things shape a stand here. Demonstrations run throughout the show rather than at set times, so equipment that can be seen working has a real advantage. And because the conference charges separately and seats first-come, attendees drift between sessions and the floor rather than disappearing for half-days.