The oldest economic sector in Germany?

The exhibition industry has a good chance of winning this title.

Frankfurt has been known as a trade fair location for around 800 years, and the trade fair company in Berlin is celebrating its 200th birthday this year.

The traditional business was a lucrative business in the past decades, the exhibition organizers were used to success.

Then came the pandemic - and with it a fall deeper than in almost any other branch of the economy.

The organizers complained that there had never been a comparable standstill.

In 2021, more than 70 percent of the 380 trade fairs planned in Germany did not take place due to corona.

Business is now up and running again.

Major events such as the Hanover Fair or the craft fair in Munich characterized a dense trade fair summer and attracted numerous visitors to the halls.

The IFA has just opened in Berlin, which according to its organizers is the largest consumer electronics fair in the world.

Until Tuesday, not only televisions can be seen under the radio tower, which with a screen diagonal of 3.50 meters go beyond all living room dimensions, but also visions of an all-encompassing networked world are traded there that are no longer as cloudy as they were a few years ago.

So everything fine?

Anyone who listens to managers like the CEO of the Berlin trade fair company is tempted to believe: actually yes.

A platform like the IFA is unique, says Martin Ecknig, and by 2022 the former radio exhibition will be on the way back to its former glory.

It is true that significantly fewer exhibitors found their way to the capital this year - around 1100, while in the pre-Corona year 2019 there were still 1900.

And despite hall renovations, only 80 percent of the remaining space is occupied, while the show used to be bursting at the seams.

All of this does not seem to cause real concern for the Berliners: They point to the Corona circumstances, are happy about a successful "restart" and a lively rush on the first day of the fair.

Trade fairs have to offer more today

And yet the IFA is a good example of the fact that the trade fair world is in a state of upheaval.

It is not so much the danger that digitization will completely undermine it.

Two years of virtual meetings and conferences have shown that business can be done without trade fair stands and personal meetings - and very well and successfully, as the consumer electronics industry is proving.

The Corona years 2020 and 2021 were a dream for manufacturers of video and audio products, computer and telecommunications equipment.

The home office and the forced withdrawal of customers into their own homes ensured double-digit growth rates worldwide.

But in the industry you can also hear: finally trade fairs again, finally face-to-face meetings again.

Apparently, in our fully digitized world, even many professionals don't want to do without the analog that has shaped people for centuries and millennia.

Providing the platform for being able to touch and try out things and products, trade fair organizers see this as an indispensable core of their business.

True, but that alone is no longer enough today.

Trade fairs have to offer more than huge halls and more and more space.

You also have to deliver a digital offering, a platform with extensive networking opportunities.

At least that is what industrial customers want, driven by two years of hybrid trade fair experience.

It is an upheaval that not all exhibition organizers want to admit.

This is demonstrated by the sluggish negotiations between the Berlin trade fair company and the industry association GFU, which holds the rights to the IFA and in which large consumer electronics groups have joined forces.

For about a year, the future of the radio exhibition has been fought out with a lot of fighting spirit.

It's about money, but only superficially.

In fact, different views collide as to what trade fairs should be and who is ultimately responsible for what.

This is not a good development for the IFA.

Two years before the big anniversary, the 100th "birthday", it is unclear in what form it will take place in the future - and where.

The industry as a whole should take the case to heart.

Customers will punish anyone who comes too late.

Even the most beautiful traditions are no longer of any help here.