IAA, OMR, TOA: Which are the important digital trade fairs in Germany?

Germany remains a frontrunner when it comes to specialist trade fairs. Over half of the word’s leading trade fairs take place here. Trade fairs remain important sources of inspiration and platforms for direct exchanges. Of the 9 to 10 million annual visitors who want to exchange views on the latest trends and conclude business deals, almost 30 per cent come from abroad.
On the part of the visitors, trade fairs offer the optimal conditions to seek out potential employers, gain a market overview, test out products or conclude contracts. We have listed the five biggest trade fairs in Germany. This is followed by an overview of the important digital trade fairs in Germany.

1.IAA

The IAA International Commercial Vehicles Conference is the undisputed number one if we’re talking about the number of people who visit this trade fair, with 810,400 visitors last year. Last year the topics of digitalisation, alternative drive systems and automated driving were at the forefront.

2. bauma

Over half a million people – 620,000 to be exact – visit bauma, the construction machinery and mining machinery trade fair. The industry meets every three years at the exhibition centre in Munich, and the show lasts for seven days. It is the word’s chief specialist trade fair for construction machinery, building materials machinery, mining machinery, construction vehicles and construction equipment.

3. Agritechnica

Grains, tractors, haulers, tractor units, crop protection, fertiliser, vegetables, watering, soil cultivation: these are the most important topics discussed at Agritechnica. This trade fair takes place every two years at the exhibition centre in Hannover and had around 458,000 visitors in 2017. This year it is taking place from the 10th - 16th November.

4. International Green Week (Internationale Grüne Woche)

This trade fair regularly takes place at the start of the year in the halls under the Berliner Funkturm (radio tower). It is the most important trade fair internationally for the food, agriculture and horticulture industries and is visited by around 400,000 people.

5. Gamescom:

Advertised on the homepage as “The Heart of Gaming”, this year’s Gamescom is taking place from the 20th - 24th August 2019 in Cologne and is Europe’s leading trade fair for digital gaming culture. Today the ESL World Championships in the E-Sport sector are even held during the trade fair. With around 370,000 visitors, Gamescom set another new record on its tenth outing in 2018.

Important digital trade fairs in Germany

1. TOA

A Tech Open Air Festival - TOA for short. Nerd alert? Not really, because the festival can offer so much more. This year the TOA Festival is taking place for the eighth time in the Funkhaus Berlin from the 2nd - 5th July. It has everything: events from national and international businesses and start-ups, scientific institutions show us inside, plus there are workshops on almost every corner and rooftop yoga. And of course, there is also an after-work party. Marc Opelt, Chairperson of the Divisional Board at OTTO knows the importance of these trade fairs: “The TOA Festival is not just about technological innovations. It is about connecting the various disciplines such as technology, music and science. But of course it is also about bringing together ‘game changers’, start-ups, established companies and investors in one place.”

2. OMR

When rock stars throw parties, they are lavish and long. And the OMR Festival is celebrated in much the same way. Online Marketing Rockstars impresses throughout the day with a lavish techie and marketing programme, and lets the rock stars loose in the evening. The OMR began in 2011 as a small exhibition with around 200 guests. In 2012 there were already 600. Today around 40,000 people take part in the event.

The most important focuses of the OMR are affiliate marketing, content marketing, display or email marketing and e-commerce and consulting, but there are also various tech themes. Nicolai Johannsen is Director of Customer & Sales and likes the spirit of the OMR: “The OMR Festival is a trade fair full of highlights. There are political discussions with Katarina Barley, digital heavyweights like Frank Thelen take to the stage to talk critically about the state of digitalisation in Germany, and Kalle Schwensen, a giant of Hamburg’s red light district, is listening in the audience. To this end, the organisers are also able to fly in the top speakers from the New York marketing world. That kind of thing doesn’t happen anywhere else in Germany.”

3. re:publica

The annual conference is taking place this year from the 6th - 8th May in Berlin and is primarily tacking the themes of Web 2.0, special weblogs, social media and the digital society. The event venue is the Station Berlin – an exhibition centre in the historic buildings of the former Kreuzberger Postbahnhof. re:publica has since developed events in other countries, in order to pay more attention to new topics and to position itself more internationally. And what makes it extra special is that around 20,000 people visited re:publica in 2018, whilst in 2007 the figure was only around 700. What will happen in 2019?

4. K5

This is where the e-commerce scene meets. At K5, businesses, creators, and top decision-makers from the e-commerce and digital trading world come together. The K5 Future Retail Conference at the ESTREL Congress Center in Berlin is the leading event for the trade of tomorrow and a sort of class reunion. And the special feature is that there are first-hand insights into special themes within the industry, an expo and above all, plenty of networking.

5. DIGICON

Whether you’re thinking of firms like Allianz, BOSCH, Flughafen München, Generali, Google or HypoVereinsbank, at the DIGICON in Munich around 350 notable participants from economics, science and politics speak every year in the Palais Lenbach about machine learning, quantum computing, data mining and reinforcement learning. They are visionary speeches which lead to numerous discussions. It all kicks off again from 20th - 21st November 2019. “Back in 2017 I gave a speech at Digicon called ‘OTTO on the way to becoming a data-driven real-time enterprise’. With our further development into a platform, we are increasingly becoming a technology business. Therefore we are very transparent in explaining our digital history and take to the stages as experts on the topic of AI, computer-generated imagery or perhaps conversational commerce. At conferences, global corporations and hidden champions meet – I really value this varied exchange of ideas”, says Michael Müller-Wünsch, Divisional Director of Technology (CIO) at OTTO.

6. DLD Munich

From AI to quantum computing. The question of how the digital age is influencing our lives is debated every January in Munich by opinion makers and industry leaders, start-ups and digital giants. And what makes it special is that Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg und Paolo Coelho have all previously taken the stage at DLD. In addition there are also evening events and workshops for the audience.

7. IFA

It calls itself the “world’s leading trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances”. IFA is an international radio exhibition and is once again taking place in Berlin in September. There is no slump in sight here, even if the market for entertainment electronics stagnated this year worldwide. The trade fair is sold out once again. The reason for this also lies in the fact that the event organisers have quickly jumped onto new trends, and the hype surrounding the “white goods” has become an essential element.

8. Internet World

In March 2020, the doors are once again opening in Munich for the Internet World e-commerce trade fair. The main themes here are digitalisation in trading and the future of e-commerce. This year the expo was again able to identify an increase in visitor numbers: around 19,153 visitors came to the show and around 420 businesses exhibited in total, of which 47 were new to the fair. A record year.

Editor’s note: The listicle of the important digital trade fairs was developed without studies or statistics.