Competitive Environment: Independents Welcome

Contrary to popular belief, German messe companies don't produce every exhibition held in their massive facilities with acres of exhibition space.

It is true that the messes own and organize many exhibitions, but there's also a surprisingly significant revenue stream from shows organized independently by both German and foreign businesses.

In that regard, the messes are much like exhibition facilities in North America and elsewhere. Provided the dates are available, their facilities are for hire to any show organizer.

With vast amounts of exhibition space available, bringing in outside organizers makes perfect sense. And the messes are taking full advantage.

According to Harald Koetter, director of the division of public relations and market transparency for AUMA — Assn. of the German Trade Fair Industry, every German exhibition center is interested in hosting more outside organizers in its facility. Although he didn't have any specific information on their efforts, he noted that about 25 percent of the 150 to 160 international shows held in Germany every year are organized by companies or associations independent of the exhibition centers.

NuernbergMesse is typical in its approach to, and appreciation of, independent organizers. According to spokesman Peter Ottmann, NuernbergMesse has "grown up" with what the messes call "guest organizers."

"We produced around one third of our current revenue of €125 million ($168.7 million) in 2006, 30 percent more than 2005, through private organizers that book our site and technical services," Ottmann said. "Our best known guest event is Spielwarenmesse's Intl. Toy Fair Nuernberg."

He added, "There are more independent exhibition organizers in Germany than expected at first glance. Apart from the classic private exhibition organizers like Reed Exhibitions, these include associations, institutions and publishing companies, which in some cases organize their exhibitions in cooperation with site companies."

Ottmann said that other messes also significantly feature large private organizers, including Messe Frankfurt, which hosts three association shows: the Assn. of the German Automotive Industry's Intl. Motor Show IAA (also known as the Frankfurt Motor Show); the Frankfurt Book Fair, owned by a German book dealers' association; and ACHEMA, a chemical engineering exhibition.

Hannover Fairs also has large guest events such as IAA Commercial Vehicles and the German Agricultural Society's Agritechnica.

NuernbergMesse calls shows it hosts and organizes with, or for others, "partner events." For example, it organizes the European Coatings Show for the coatings and paint industry with German publisher and show owner Vincentz Network. The most recent show attracted about 14 percent more visitors and 22 percent more exhibitors, and encompassed 17 percent more display space than in the previous year.

There are three different scenarios for NuernbergMesse's involvement with its independent shows:

• In the first, NuernbergMesse rents out its exhibit halls and meeting space, providing the guest organizer with organizational advice and support. The guest owns and organizes the exhibition and bears the overall business risk.
• In the second, the guest organizer owns and organizes its exhibition from a legal, fiscal and business viewpoint. However, it delegates the organization of the exhibition to NuernbergMesse, which provides a specific project team to carry out the standard show management tasks in close consultation with the guest organizer. An example of this model is Interzoo, an international trade fair for pet supplies.
• In the third, NuernbergMesse assumes legal and fiscal responsibility, as well as bears the business risk.

Another German company that highly values its guest events is Messe Frankfurt, and it's a veteran at it too. Spokeswoman Ann-Katrin Nolte said guest events have always ranked high at the Frankfurt trade fair venue.

"We have had guest events on our fairground since 1949," she added, pointing as examples to the book, car and chemical shows, which she described as "very significant." In 2005, contracts with the Book Fair, IAA and ACHEMA were extended (Book Fair until 2009, IAA to 2011 and ACHEMA 2015).

Messe Frankfurt's guest show project team handles the facility's guest events by offering a full range of services. Last year, 38 trade fairs took place in Frankfurt, including 24 guest fairs.

At Messe Frankfurt, said Georg-Guenther Kruse, vice president of event management, guest fairs can attract as many as 1.9 million visitors and consequently make a significant contribution to the exhibition grounds' occupancy rates. Kruse said, although it is hard to be specific because of show rotation, approximately 10 percent of the messe's revenue will come as the result of independent events in both the current and coming financial years.

Messe Frankfurt intends to step up its acquisition of high-quality guest events in order to make full use of its exhibit hall capacity, he added.

Some independent shows have long histories with Messe Frankfurt: The triennial ACHEMA took place last year in Frankfurt for the 28th time in the last 83 years; the biennial IAA for the 62nd time; and the Frankfurt Book Fair for the 59th time.

Messe Frankfurt provides a variety of services to outside organizers, but for the book fair, it handled almost everything, from booth construction to organizational services. This was a new model but one that proved successful, paving the way for possible expanded services to other guest events at Frankfurt Messe.

The list of independent events at Messe Frankfurt goes on, including DEMAT's EuroMold, for the manufacture, design and development of tools and moulds, held since 1993. Since 2002, this event has been complemented by the parallel Turntec trade fair for turning components, turning and milling technology.

The fourth edition of U.K.-based Regent Exhibitions' IMEX, an international exhibition for incentive travel, meetings and events, took place this year in Frankfurt. IMEX CEO Ray Bloom said Messe Frankfurt and IMEX were an ideal combination.

The IAA and Book Fair, in particular, generate a lot of media attention and so are key factors in Frankfurt's success as a trade fair location, Kruse said. And more than the exhibition grounds get busy when a fair is on, he added. During the Book Fair, for example, there are readings, panel discussions and other literary events that take place all over the city.

Independent show organizers are also important to Hamburg Messe, said Heike Schlimbach, project director for guest events. Each year, Hamburg hosts about 20 major guest events, along with numerous additional smaller meetings, corporate events and private product introductions.

Among the independent show organizers that Hamburg Messe does business with are global players like Reed Exhibitions (Aircraft Interiors Expo), the U.S.-based WAEA (World Airline Entertainment Assn. Conference & Expo) and the United Kingdom's UKiP Media Events (Venue Expo, Post Expo, Passenger Terminal Expo and Tire Technology Expo).

Independent German organizers that also use the Hamburg venue for their shows include HINTE (Intergeo, Arbeitsschutz aktuell, Giardina Hamburg, SalonGourmet and RendezVino), CDH (Hamburger Einkaufstage) and Planetfair (HanseGolf Hamburg and Aquaterra).

Next year, Hamburg Messe's newest building will open, with more than 84,000 square meters (904,000 square feet) of exhibit space available. Schlimbach said it would give the company even more opportunity to launch its own events and rent the venue to independent show organizers.

Hamburg Messe now rents about half of all area used to independent show organizers, she added. With the completion of the new venue, the demand for guest events is expected to grow, particularly from international show organizers in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Koelnmesse Ausstellungen is the wholly owned subsidiary of Koelnmesse that concentrates on guest events. It markets free hall capacity to outside shows organized by German and international trade fair companies without their own sites, associations and purchasing cooperatives. It also conducts its own events for the public.

In 2006, the subsidiary reported revenue of €9 million ($12.1 million U.S.). It staged six of its own events, a new record, and hosted 23 outside organizers' shows.

According to Jan Pothof, Koelnmesse Ausstellungen general manager, the company is eager to assist independent organizers in staging successful shows in Cologne.

He estimated that about 50 percent of the tradeshows regularly held annually in Cologne are Koelnmesse productions, and the other 50 percent are guest events. The number of guest events has tripled since 2000, when Koelnmesse established its guest events subsidiary.

And if the messes' involvement with independent organizers weren't already significant enough, they're reaching out to independent organizers in other ways. For instance, a growing number of tradeshows that are successful — or bidding to become so — in regions elsewhere in the world are coming under Messe Frankfurt's wing, even if they don't have a pilot event in Frankfurt. At the beginning of April the company set up an independent brands department headed by Stephan Kurzawski within the business development division.