The IFA Berlin in special form

The international trade fair world looks forward to IFA Berlin, the most important electronics event in the world. In view of travel restrictions and social distancing, as it still exists today, it is managed as a reduced trade fair for B2B business. Scheduled for September 3-5, 2020, its 2020 concept, unveiled Tuesday, is likely to influence numerous other trade show venues and trade shows worldwide.

Fair of short distances

IFA 2020 will focus on its core B2B function as a trade show. It will consist of four independent events and is currently planned with no more than 1,000 participants per day for each event. With three trade show days and four events, this results in a maximum number of visitors of 12,000.

In comparison, IFA 2019 attracted close to 2,000 exhibitors and 245,000 visitors. The four events are the IFA Global Press Conference, the sourcing show IFA Global Markets, IFA Next for startups with IFA Shift Mobility, and the IFA Business, Retail and Meeting Lounges.

Due to the regulations in place today, IFA 2020 will not be open to the public, but will be an invitation-only event. However, Jens Heithecker, Executive Director of IFA Berlin, could not yet say which exhibitors and which visitors will participate or be selected. He holds out the prospect of a corresponding clarification for the end of June 2020. "We believe that the conditions will be somewhat more relaxed by September 2020. But it will be a trade show of short distances," says Heithecker.

A journalist asked whether it would not have been better to cancel IFA 2020 in the environment caused by Corona? Hans-Joachim Kamp, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of gfu Consumer & Home Electronics, organizer of IFA, said: "No. We have great respect for what Messe Berlin has put together. IFA 2020 will therefore be something of a best-practice example."

"Back to normal, big IFA in 2021".

Will IFA 2020 have a significant impact on the show in 2021 and the coming years? "IFA is an order show, there is nowhere else in the world like it, and we want it to be like that again in 2021," says Jens Heithecker. "We don't think the changes this year will affect 2021. There will be changes, but they will be influenced by the innovations in our industry." Moreover, he adds, "Everyone wants to go back to the normal, the big IFA, the IFA of magic. But we are not dreamers. Only if we have an inoculation in six or three quarters of a year, we can say if IFA 2021 will be back to normal."

With its concept for 2020, the IFA has achieved a bravura special performance, in compliance with the highest safety precautions. The 2020 concept was drawn up in close coordination with the relevant authorities. Health and safety will have the highest priority.