By Elizabeth Johnson

This week, the world’s largest mining equipment, products and services exhibition was held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Sponsored by the National Mining Association (NMA), MINExpo INTERNATIONAL® 2016 covered more than 840,000 net square feet, showcasing the latest mining equipment and technology from 1,900-plus exhibitors around the world.

Held every four years, MINExpo this year welcomed more than 44,000 attendees from 130 countries to the event. Several well-known figures including Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Indy 500 Champion Helio Castroneves, who stopped by to chat with attendees at the Shell booth, made appearances at the Las Vegas Convention Center throughout the event.

As an international show, MINExpo works closely with the U.S. Commercial Service, and this year it welcomed delegations from 31 countries.

“This was a record number of international delegations for MINExpo,” said Moya Phelleps, senior vice president of member services at NMA.

The opening session, moderated by Nina Easton, Fox News analyst and chair of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women International, featured top mining executives discussing the global outlook for mining equipment, coal and minerals production and the public policy environment for mining.

But, perhaps the most unexpected event took place on Tuesday evening when two employees from Komatsu were married atop one of the company’s huge mining trucks in the Exhibit Hall.

“As far as we know, this is the first wedding to take place on the MINExpo floor,” said Ashley Hurst, manager, meetings and member services at NMA.

MINExpo 2016 featured a few new operational changes. It eliminated traditional industry publication bins and replaced them with signs that allowed attendees to subscribe via QR Code in order to reduce paper on site. Additionally, its photography team used drones to create dynamic videos of the Exhibit Hall that were released on its website and social media channels.

Given both the overall size of the show and sheer physical enormity of many of the exhibits, MINExpo is set up and dismantled over several weeks and takes years of planning and coordination with the city of Las Vegas and others. NMA partners with a number of industry suppliers to produce MINExpo including Frost Miller, GES, Hall Erickson Inc. and Oscar Einzig, who work diligently for years to make the show successful.

The next MINExpo INTERNATIONAL® will take place Sept. 28-30, 2020, in Las Vegas.