HarvestTECH & Wood Transport Logistics 2026 is a single combined Innovatek forestry technology conference held 10-11 November 2026 at Distinction Hotel Rotorua, merging the former HarvestTECH and Wood Transport & Logistics events.
HarvestTECH & Wood Transport Logistics 2026 is a two-day industry conference running on 10-11 November 2026 at the Distinction Hotel Rotorua. According to the official event page, the 2026 edition brings together what were previously two separate conferences - HarvestTECH and the Wood Transport & Logistics event - into one programme, giving delegates a wider end-to-end view of harvesting and the wood supply chain in a single forum rather than as back-to-back standalone meetings.
The New Zealand government forestry portal canopy.govt.nz describes it as a key combined technology forum for professionals across the forestry, wood harvesting and log transport sectors, delivered as an in-person event in Rotorua.
The conference is organised by Innovatek Ltd, the Rotorua-based specialist that has run New Zealand's forestry technology event series for many years. The Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA) is a division of Innovatek and appears here as an event partner, offering registration discounts to its members rather than acting as a separate organiser.
The canopy.govt.nz listing says the event carries more than 40 presentations from industry leaders, built around case studies from logging contractors, harvesting managers and logistics and transport operators, alongside technical question-and-answer panels and live demonstrations. Innovatek's programme outline covers energy resilience and electrification, AI-assisted forestry logistics and log reception, autonomous and mechanised harvesting including steep-slope and cable-yarding systems, harvester-head technology, hydraulics and machinery, slash and biochar, and bark detection on export logs, with a FICA workshop on harvesting productivity. The stated audience is harvesting and wood-flow planners, harvesting and haulage contractors, transport operators, forestry managers and forest owners, technical foresters, consultants, researchers, supply-chain and logistics companies, and sector suppliers from across Australasia.
The confirmed venue is the Distinction Rotorua Hotel & Conference Centre at 390 Fenton Street, which also hosts the event's exhibition stands. The hotel's own venues page lists a purpose-built Fenton Conference Centre seating up to 500 delegates theatre-style or 340 for a banquet, formed from the combined Miro, Tawa and Rimu rooms, within a property offering nine configurable spaces and on-site accommodation - a scale that comfortably absorbs a 40-plus-presentation conference plus trade exhibition under one roof. The hotel sits on Fenton Street, the main arterial route linking Rotorua's lakefront city centre to Rotorua Airport, keeping delegate movement between accommodation, sessions and the airport short.
Forestry is one of New Zealand's largest primary-export sectors, and Rotorua is its technical heartland, home to Scion and the country's forestry research and engineering cluster. By consolidating two long-running conferences into a single combined event, Innovatek concentrates the sector's harvesting and log-transport technology audience into one Rotorua business-events week - a recurring, nationally significant primary-industry conference that anchors demand for the city's conference, accommodation and exhibition capacity.
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