The CTBUH (Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat) October 2018 conference in Dubai was attended by Ziad Dargham and Peter Terrell, and by over 1300 delegates from 54 countries. The theme, ‘Polycentric Cities: the Future of Vertical Urbanism’, was subdivided into several sections over the two days, including Façades, Smart Buildings and Cities, Skybridges and many others. The content was of an extremely high calibre, presenting not only current state of the art projects, but looking into the future of urbanisation and the technologies that are transforming science fiction into science fact. Subjects such as the future of vertical cordless transportation capable of transferring horizontally through skybridges, smart buildings capable of self-learning, new technologies to manage risk and reduce energy consumption, and many many more, enabled delegates to access the very latest thinking on how to manage urban population growth in a rational and sustainable manner.