Water authorities, experts and businesses flooded into Bendigo on Wednesday for the Water Industry Operators Association of Australia conference.
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The two-day conference aims to celebrate the people making sure consumers have access to the highest quality water possible.
WIOA managing director George Wall said he hoped to see almost 1300 visitors to the event which has been at the Bendigo Exhibition Centre for 10 years.
"Most customers turn the tap on and the water comes out," he said. "They really only notice something wrong if it's dirty or if there's nothing.
"What they don't understand is how much work goes into it at the back-end to actually make that happen.
"The people running the systems at home are they're the ones that we're trying to celebrate."
A highlight of the conference was independent judges ruling on Victoria's best tasting water.
Melbourne Water secured the title for the first time, beating out regional water suppliers Central Highlands and Goulburn Valley in the final.
Mr Wall said there were a lot of subtle differences between all the entries into the competition.
"The three that were there in the final were pretty good," he said. "Every organisation that brought their water, everybody tested it and they were the three that were chosen for the grand final.
"It's not really a scientific competition. It's more about the personal preferences on the judges at the time.
"That's why we had independent people so we didn't have anybody on the stage actually from Victoria."
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Local, national and international business made up more than 170 displays at the conference.
"There's technology coming out right, left and center that is actually revolutionising how the industry works," Mr Wall said. "A lot of it is around monitoring and automatic operation of systems.
"At the end of the day, we're not trying to replace operators, we're trying to make the system run more efficiently, more economically.
"Then those savings get passed back to the consumers because we don't have to pay as much for water or the bills that go up by as much if we can do it better."
Mr Wall said he was already excited to return to Bendigo again in 2023.
"It's fantastic having this facility and venue in regional Victoria," he said. "(The conference) has just got bigger and bigger and the fact that we've got everybody under one roof, in a central location in the state for travel.
"It's a no brainer that we're just gonna keep coming."
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