Water refill stations for events: how IMEX America keeps 1,000+ bottles out of landfills
IMEX America, the trade show for the meetings and events industry, runs a branded water refill station on its Las Vegas show floor every year: a mobile cart where visitors fill their own bottle instead of grabbing a single-use one. It has been a recurring water partnership between Join the Pipe and IMEX since 2024, with 500 bottles supplied for the 2025 edition and 1,000 more (250 America-design, 250 Las Vegas-design and 500 Costa Rica-design) confirmed for the 2026 show.
Why a trade show needs its own water station
A conference centre or trade fair hall is exactly the kind of venue where bottled water piles up fast: thousands of visitors, several days, no kitchens or taps within reach on the show floor. A mobile refill cart solves that without construction work. It rolls onto the floor, connects to a water point once, and every attendee can refill for the rest of the event. IMEX places theirs centrally with clear signage, "Refill your water bottle courtesy of IMEX", so it doubles as a visible sustainability statement for the show itself.
What's on the cart
The unit in the photo is Join the Pipe Mobile Tap: a self-contained refill point that needs no fixed plumbing, built for exactly this kind of temporary deployment at conferences, trade fairs and festivals. For a longer event or a bigger floor, the same setup works with a stationary Hall Tap or Bar Tap instead. Both use AISI 316 stainless steel and KIWA & WRAS-certified components for the water-contact parts, so a rented unit meets the same drinking-water standards as a permanently installed one.
Sizing a water station for your own event
The IMEX numbers are a useful benchmark for anyone planning a similar setup: a single mobile station comfortably served a multi-day US trade show floor with several thousand visitors, backed by a batch of branded bottles handed out at registration so people have something to refill in the first place. For a venue booking a water station, that pairing (a tap plus a starter batch of bottles) is usually the right ask, not a tap alone.
The bottles
The bottles handed out at IMEX are 99% sugarcane bioplastic, CO2-negative over their lifecycle, Braskem "I'm green" certified, EU food-contact compliant (EC 10/2011) and BPA-free. Custom-printed bottles start at 100 units per design, with production typically 10 to 15 working days after artwork approval. For a recurring event like IMEX, each year's batch can carry a different design, in this case an America, a Las Vegas and a Costa Rica edition for 2026, tying the bottle to the destination rather than reprinting the same design every time.
Every bottle Join the Pipe sells also funds one donated to a school project through the foundation, on top of whatever's ordered for an event.
Bringing this to your own venue or event
Whether it's a conference centre, a trade fair hall or a one-off festival, the same combination applies: a rented tap on the floor and a branded batch of bottles for attendees. Rentals and installations are quoted per event via the request-a-quote page, and the full lineup is on the taps collection. Rentals ship Europe-wide, bottle printing worldwide. For a permanently installed take on the same idea, see how Swiss Railways put refill stations on its train platforms.