For any countries seeking to emulate the success of Germany, here’s a long-read on how the country built an exhibition industry envied across the globe.
(You might want to find a comfy chair and pour a strong coffee for this one…)
In the years that followed the Middle Ages, Germany – as it is today – was at the epicentre of European trade and development. And as the world entered the autumn of the 19th century, it was Germany, at least in Europe, that developed and operated a model that clearly showed the impact that recurring international exhibitions could have for a market – either geographical or industrial.
The establishment of post-medieval trading communities such as the Hanseatic League (Hansa) were early prototypes for modern bodies such as the European Economic Community. The Hansa was a commercial confederation that between the 13th and 17th centuries gave rise to regular trading cycles and protection. With the north German city of Lübeck as its capital, the League enabled market towns and merchant guilds across northern Europe to share products under protected economic and diplomatic conditions.
German industry has played a major role in the development of trade fairs, especially in the last hundred years. But as early as the Middle Ages, important fairs were established at the intersections of major trade routes in cities such as Leipzig, Frankfurt/Main and Cologne. The process of industrialisation that began in the 18th century also demanded new sales and distribution channels which also affected the trade fair business.
However, it was not until the middle of the 19th century that the ‘Mustermesse’ (Samples Fair) we know today was developed; it emerged initially in Leipzig but its use quickly spread to other locations.
The composition of the shows also evolved, with goods on the fair stands no longer sold directly in a transactional currency-for-goods format. Instead, exhibitors displayed samples, and the interested parties would place orders or otherwise establish a process of supply. These samples fairs, with a wide range of investment and consumer goods, dominated the trade fair scene in Germany and Europe right through to the middle of the 20th century. The Leipzig Fair officially became known as Mustermesse in 1895.
With the establishment of the German Reich in 1871, Leipzig became the only city in the country to enjoy a reputation as a leading international trade fair centre beyond Germany’s borders. Elsewhere, from the mid-19th century to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, world exhibitions were regarded in a way that is very different to today.
Where today these world expos rarely make headlines in the international press, they used to serve a considerable economic function and were often showcases for the initial presentation of important technical inventions and innovations. The German Reich, and to a great extent also German industry, was closely involved in these events.
At the end of the 19th century, numerous exhibitions of national significance were also organised; they were, for the most part, dedicated to a specific topic such as electricity, health or mechanical engineering, and they were aimed primarily at the general public.
The end of the Great War in 1918 ushered in a new era. While the Leipzig Fair continued to play a leading role, the Frankfurt and Cologne fairs regained their importance once again. By the end of the 1920s individual specialist fairs began to appear alongside the large public exhibitions being held in Berlin.
According to Harald Kötter, German exhibition industry expert and director of public relations and market transparency at the Association of the German Trade Fair Industry (AUMA), in the run-up to the Second World War the government in Germany continued to recognise the significance of trade shows as platforms through which to reach large audiences, and began to distort their purpose for its own gain. “Exhibitions in Germany evolved to become a form of propaganda for ‘public enlightenment’, with their core purpose shifting from that of marketing instruments to ‘demonstrations of national efficiency’,” he explains. “As might be expected, during this period the trade fair and exhibition business was firmly under the control of the Reich Propaganda Ministry.”
And with that, the world was again plunged into darkness. The aisles of the exhibition halls were no longer filled with international visitors but with munitions and the machinery of war.
The fog lifts
Developments at the end of the Second World War instigated a decisive break in the directional growth of the German trade fair and exhibition industry, which was forced to undergo a root and branch restructure as Germany divided into two sectors following events in 1949.
As part of the Eastern Bloc under Soviet occupation, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) grew increasingly detached from long-established German trading principles of openness and the facilitation of international visitors – principles that are, of course, integral to the development of any global exhibition marketplace. Despite this handicap, however, Leipzig, the only trade fair centre in the GDR, attempted to regain its international position and played a key role in East–West trade right up until the 1980s.
On the other side of the idealistic line and geographic border, in the Federal Republic of Germany, the international fairs in Frankfurt and Cologne were dusted off and kicked back into operation again in 1947 and 1948 respectively. The Berlin Exhibition Centre followed suit in 1950. These existing centres were joined by the gigantic Deutsche Messe-und Ausstellungs in Hanover, which was founded in 1947 with the British army playing an interesting role, converting a former aluminium factory in the interests of economic regeneration. Until then, small trade fair centres including Düsseldorf and Munich played a more important role. Further international trade fairs were developed at other locations, including Essen, Nuremberg, Hamburg and Stuttgart, albeit initially with only regional significance.
“The 1950s and 1960s were marked by geographical and thematic decentralisation,” comments Kötter. “Above all, this was due to the fact that numerous trade fair themes that had previously been part of the Leizpig Fair, now had to be established in West Germany. In this way numerous trade fairs for clearly-defined sectors of industry were created.”
It was to be the birth of a national collection of exhibition centres quite unlike anywhere else in the world.
For obvious reasons, in the late 1940s the Allied occupying powers and Germany’s citizens had a great interest in seeing German industry regain its former export strength as quickly as possible. The significance of these huge trade fair centres was well understood at the time. “To this end, internationally representative trade fairs in Germany were an outstanding instrument,” says Kötter. “This belief conformed to the endeavours of the German fair companies, to create an international image and correspondingly to open up their events to exhibitors and visitors from all over the world.”
And as befits an exhibition venue and organisers of such stature, Leipzig too left its monopolistic position in the East and re-entered the fold. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany in 1990, the city sought to establish a new role for itself in the once again competition-oriented and unified German trade fair scene. In doing so its trade fair programme was split into numerous events. They might have been playing in a different field for 45 years, but East German companies were quick to recognise the importance of trade fairs in a market economy, and were well on the way to once more making intensive use of trade fairs on both sides of the now defunct divide.
This period also saw the development of a key feature of the German trade fair scene, whereby companies organising fairs staged events according to a specific sector and with international participation, all supported by the respective trade associations as conceptual sponsors or co-organisers. Today, the model remains more or less identical: a venue, a city, an audience of buying visitors and selling exhibitors that belong to a specific industry or part of an industry, and buy-in from an aspirational association or guild.
But to understand the roots of the modern exhibition further, we have to look more closely at the conditions and market forces that were already at play over a century ago. The journey from trading communities such as the Hanseatic League to modern, cultivated, economic clusters is the result of much more than the erection of a few giant buildings.
Up until the end of the 19th century, the history of trade fairs and exhibitions was characterised by considerable state influence and by the exercise of patronage and privilege. But with the broadening range of goods for sale and an increasing number of inventions appearing, the matter arose of how best to utilise exhibitions to get these innovations to market. How many commercial exhibitions could industry stand? Who should organise what, at which time and venue?
Events in Germany during these decades showed that while there was increasing engagement by private organisers of exhibitions, competition was also developing between organisers in the public sector. In fact, there was such an increase in the number of public exhibitions that the industry became thoroughly unsettled. Having once sought out such exhibitions as platforms for reaching their target audiences, the very entities these exhibitions were conceived to serve were now faced with too much choice. So great was the over-supply that they had become dissatisfied.
Under this pressure the ‘Permanent Exhibition Commission for German Industry’, the predecessor of today’s AUMA, was founded in 1907. For the continued success of the industry, this body, drawn from industry associations, undertook the task of creating order in the exhibition and trade fair business in Germany.
“What was the reason for the foundation? It had been preceded by over a century of the German exhibition and trade fair business with good and bad experiences and half a century of German participations at world expositions with similar ambivalent experiences,” says Harald Kötter. “A large number of small and extremely small public shows had arisen, and commercial exhibition organisers appeared on the scene, often with the support of the municipalities.
“Many exhibition scandals and business collapses had shaken the confidence of industry and threatened to discredit the good public exhibitions. Those in the industry lacked the possibility to rationally check the many projects and to make decisions about participation on a solid basis. Based on this recognition, the wish developed to create an organisation that in future should make successful participation possible for German industry.”
Protecting the interests of the attendees and exhibitors was one thing. But there also had to be some regulation that ensured fair competition between individual organisers of these events. The municipally supervised international fair in Leipzig, for example, had an unchallenged position as a sample fair. Hardly in keeping with an ideal in which free and fair competition is seen, after all, as a cornerstone of free enterprise.
The extension of responsibility of the Permanent Exhibition Commission for German Industry to accommodate such matters happened in 1920 as the commission evolved into the ‘Exhibition and Trade Fair Office of German Industry’. That same year the National Trade Fair Conference gathered 170 representatives of business organisations to create additional general fairs in Frankfurt/Main and Cologne. The aim was to protect the Leipzig Fair from new fairs since the main commercial supporter of this fair, particularly in financial terms, was industry.
Nothing could be said against the one-time organisation of trade fairs, provided they were supported by specific industry groups in agreement with the buyers. However, Kötter points out that the debate clearly showed that in the cities in which new fairs had developed there was no belief that trade fair policy was industrial policy and not municipal policy. “On the contrary: the trend towards decentralisation had grown and the Leipzig Fair, which was accused of monopolistic endeavours, came under fierce attack.”
A shaky start: international trade shows
Following the First World War, Germany’s trade fairs began to find competition forming abroad. The arrival of these new foreign trade fairs became part of AUMA’s area of activity, with information on the activities of these competing trade fair organisers taking on greater importance.
In 1927, in an effort to reduce the threat posed by the arrival of international events elsewhere, the leading associations of the wholesale and foreign trade, the retail trade, the skilled trades and agriculture as well as the German Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry joined the organisation to increase its industry catchment. It adopted a new name, the ‘German Exhibition and Trade Fair Office’, and now represented the complete spectrum of the exhibiting and visiting industry.
“Up to the seizure of power by the National Socialists in 1933, the German Exhibition and Trade Fair Office also contributed to truth and clarity as well as to legal certainty in the trade fair industry with a series of publications,” explains Kötter. “For example, model regulations for the awarding of prizes to products by commercial exhibitions were published in cooperation with the National Board of Trustees for Economic Efficiency.”
Following Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933, the Advertising Council of German Industry was established and put under the authority of the Ministry of Propaganda. The following year, the Trade Fair Office was renamed the Exhibition and Trade Fair Committee of German Industry, the name by which it continues to be known today. “This committee served as a permanent advisory body to the Advertising Council and as a result, was spared absolute enforced conformity,” comments Kötter, adding that it had, however, lost its influence as an independent institution of the industry.
The strict interpretation of the National Trade Ordinance now regulated the trade fair and exhibition industry in Germany. For the protection of the Leipzig Fair, a special body under public law – the Leipzig Fair Office – was created.
It’s often said that while the circumstances are deplorable, great scientific and technical advance is made in times of war as a result of enforced necessity. While not quite as laudable as the fact that German long-range ballistic missile technology brought us more swiftly to the moon, the National Ministry for Public Information and Propaganda worked hard to ensure that the exhibition industry in Germany operated as efficiently as possible. It was not only responsible for the approval of exhibitions; Leipzig mayor Rudolf Haake demanded that “a good exhibition management will constantly have contact and links with this ministry, which is responsible for the exhibition industry”, and accordingly the industry consolidated around its founding principles of cohesion, communication and freedom of information. As it continues to do today.
Of course, in the run-up to World War Two these industry advances were mitigated by withdrawal on the international market. The endeavours to achieve self-reliance of the Third Reich reduced the involvement at foreign trade fairs, which were seen as a direct threat to German industry even though it was eager to increase its involvement at such events overseas. Imports of foreign goods and internationalism at fairs such as Leipzig were not a prime objective. Between 1933 and 1937 a great number of exhibitions were conceived purely for the ‘enlightenment’ of the people. Propaganda under duress does little to progress any industry, and before long the country’s exhibitions shut down altogether, walls soared tall as its despot leader traded only in lives and fanatic idealism.
Shell-shocked and rearing its head among the smouldering ruins of the Second World War, traditional industry in Germany was in complete disarray. There was no longer a central office to handle the exhibition and trade fair industry. At the instruction of the British occupying forces, an export fair was founded in Hanover in 1947, while Cologne and Frankfurt made preparations to recommence their activities. The foundation of an Exhibitors’ Advisory Committee and the merging of various industry associations were precursors to the re-establishment of AUMA in 1949. The purpose of the reinvigorated organisation was the representation of the “common interests of German industry in the area of the exhibition and trade fair business at home and abroad.” It began the continuous monitoring of all shows, collecting and evaluating relevant material, promoting the country’s more promising events and preventing those that could be considered superfluous, in effect promoting good practice and countering abuse. It also worked to monitor and assess legislation and jurisdictional issues to keep the German exhibition engine well oiled and free of impediment.
“With the new start, AUMA was again founded as a body representing the interests of the exhibiting and visiting sectors of industry,” comments Kötter. In 1951, just six years after the war, the large number of new trade fairs created the first problem of co-ordination. The exhibition centres in Frankfurt, Hanover and Cologne combined efforts to develop a joint trade fair nomenclature for various parts of the industry. Large trade fairs, including the trade fairs for leather goods in Offenbach and toys in Nuremberg, as well as the German Handicrafts Fair in Munich, ran joint international advertising. The tight cohesion and single-mindedness of the German exhibition industry was back.
“The basic idea stood equally above both the efforts of AUMA and of the involved trade fairs themselves,” the managing director of AUMA at that time, Döring, commented, advising against the use of lawyers to achieve the industry’s goals. “Any measure developed within the context of a process of self-refinement of the trade fair business, would be better than legal intervention, which was temporarily within the realms of possibility.”
Modern era
The Fabulous Fifties witnessed the foundation of numerous trade fairs, many of which still enjoy international importance today. Photokina in Cologne, the Book Fair in Frankfurt, the Leather Goods Fair in Offenbach, the Toy Fair in Nuremberg and DRUPA in Düsseldorf stand strong today having first thrown their doors open in 1951. On the other side of the Wall, the Leipzig Fair continued to exist, but it quickly became clear that despite initial popularity with exhibitors and visitors from West Germany, it would be unable to maintain its pole position as consumer and capital goods trade fairs began to pop up all over the country.
Ignited and roaring a decade after the end of the war, Germany’s economic growth initially meant that there was no problem accommodating the growing number of trade fairs. And where new markets were growing around the country, it seemed only natural that they would become financially involved in the construction of additional facilities. This was accepted by the exhibition industry as inefficient competition between organisers inevitably translated as inefficiencies imposed upon exhibitors and visitors. The changes in the trade fair business also affected AUMA, which became an association for the entire sector, including the trade fair organisers.
The recovery of the exhibition industry in Germany meant that the market was now primed to develop many industrial practices that have come to define the whole industry as we know it today.
Before the days of low-cost air travel and availability of cheap automobiles, there was a more compelling reason for the large public exhibitions and trade fairs that accommodated businesses in a variety of sectors. For many, the general interest exhibitions that took place in their city once or twice a year provided them with their only opportunity to find stock or suppliers for their business.
The visitors’ lack of mobility was the reason why it was necessary at the beginning of the Fifties to decentralise event themes. However, towards the end of the decade the industry saw the first signs of a trend towards concentrating on order, giving events greater appeal for target groups from more than one region.
With improved co-operation between the first major trade fair companies (Hanover, Frankfurt and Cologne) the way was paved for co-ordination between the organising and exhibiting sides, a relationship that was at this point unique to Germany. The country had to make room for visitors from all over the land to attend the fairs that could progress their businesses.
Other trade fair organisers followed suit. The founder members of the IDFA – the Association of German Trade Fair Organisers and Exhibition Venues (among them Berlin, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Hamburg and Essen) and the newly founded FAMA (the Special Association for Trade Fairs and Exhibitions), which represented the interests of the regional and municipal trade fair companies – soon joined AUMA, along with smaller private organisers without their own venues. In the run-up to the present day, one German trade association after another, together with companies responsible for organising participation at foreign trade fairs, became members of AUMA with a mind to matching the demands of their market with the needs of their fellow members.
AUMA, together with the Central Committee of the Advertising Industry (ZAW), began to concentrate on truth and clarity in the descriptions of events, a matter that is discussed in depth elsewhere in this book. As a result of the dynamic process of change unfolding in the types of exhibition on offer in Germany, from the universal exhibition at the beginning of the Fifties to later special interest fairs, it was becoming increasingly difficult for non-government organisations, and certainly those outside of the structure provided by the key industry associations, to play a valid role.
As the Swinging Sixties reached maturity, the scene was also set for the introduction of measurements that would seek to more accurately define the perceived value of an exhibition. As Kötter points out: “All the more important was the provision of reliable and comparable trade fair data in order to provide the exhibiting and visiting industry, at an early stage, with empirical values about the events that had been conducted.” For this purpose, in 1966 six trade fair organisers founded the Society for the Voluntary Control of Trade Fair and Exhibition Statistics (FKM), which – with its uniformly collected and audited statistics – made a vital contribution to transparency in the competition between the organisers.
Today, the German exhibition industry has a leading reputation not only as being home to some of the largest and best utilised exhibition venues, but for developing these regional institutions into progressive international businesses. Messe Frankfurt’s business in the Middle East (EPOC Messe Frankfurt) stands among the leading organisers in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Its mothership in Germany produces the motoring aftermarket products event Automechanika; this is one of, if not the, world’s most travelled exhibitions, with an annual presence in 14 different locations around the world.
“The greatest asset up to the present day has been the internationalisation of the German trade fairs which began in the Fifties, in particular, through the systematic development of representative offices abroad,” says Kötter. “Although initially there was some resistance from certain groups of German exhibitors who were interested in foreign visitors, but not in competitors on the exhibiting side, in the end all the organisers together with the internationally-operating companies succeeded in opening up German trade fairs completely to foreign exhibitors.”
And of course, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall AUMA rounded off its membership with the readmission of one of Germany’s leading centres, that had been temporarily prevented – once again by misguided political idealism – from doing business freely in Germany. The Leipzig Trade Fair Company re-entered the fold after German reunification in 1990, and with that the trade fair industry in the country that started the modern exhibition industry as we know it today, was once more complete.
With increasing diversification in industry and the integration of Germany with the world economy, the number and international significance of German trade fairs has also increased. According to Kötter: “The number of international trade fairs doubled in the period 1970 to 1990 alone to a total of about 100. At the beginning of the 1990s, more than 40 per cent of exhibitors and almost 30 per cent of visitors came from outside Germany, which means that Germany was now regarded as the world’s leading trade fair country.”
But the world outside Germany has been quick to catch up.
