Industry event calendars have become increasingly crowded over the past decade. While almost every wholesale distribution product vertical has always had an association or other entity that hosts an annual event for hundreds or thousands of attendees to congregate at, the proliferation of software vendor user conferences and distributors’ own sales/expo/innovation events has nearly every week of the 2026 calendar occupied by at least one notable event somewhere.

Below, you’ll find a list of events that are on MDM’s radar, which includes ones hosted by MDM and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW).

Before we get to the list, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give plugs for several in-house events that we are excited to offer the MDM audience in the first half of the year.

The first is NAW’s Executive Summit, set for Jan. 26-28 in Washington DC. As NAW’s biggest event of the year, it will bring a who’s-who of distribution market movers to the nation’s capital for 2.5 days of top-notch programming and plenty of networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities. The timing of America’s 250th anniversary and NAW’s 80th year of operation will make this an especially special event, which will also essentially mark the two-year anniversary of NAW’s acquisition of MDM.

And on May 12-14, NAW and MDM will host our fifth annual SHIFT Conference in Denver. Registration is open for our marquee in-person event, which serves as a change management event for teams of distribution leaders. This event has been infused with cohort-based roundtable discussions for focused, small-group conversations that are perfect for gathering process management input from peers outside of your own product vertical. The mix of external perspectives gained in these roundtables has proven immensely valuable.

Those are besides MDM’s ongoing webcasts throughout 2026, which always deliver informative discussions, case study examples and plenty of research data.

With that out of the way, here is our rundown of nearly 40 industry events in the first half of 2026 that are on MDM’s radar across industrial, commercial and building supply product sectors. Of course, this isn’t a complete list. There are undoubtedly more events that I just haven’t been made aware of that are worthy of adding to this list. This list doesn’t include vendor user conferences, and many distributors’ company expos/conventions. If you know of any events that should be added, let me know at [email protected], as I’d like for this blog to serve as an industry resource. I’ll look to post a second-half preview sometime in late May.

I hope to see you out there!