The trade fair and congress business was expected to pick up again in 2022, but initially COVID-19 prevented that from happening. Only one trade fair was able to take place at the Hamburg exhibition campus between January and March. In addition, a few of the halls were converted into temporary accommodation for refugees during the first quarter. Seven events had been planned originally.
In the absence of a sound basis for planning, major trade fairs had to be cancelled or postponed, including INTERNORGA. The fair started six weeks later, in the first weekend of May, making it the first event of #MesseMonatMai, a nationwide initiative of German trade fair companies and their umbrella organisation AUMA to direct attention to the special importance of trade events for the national economy. Trade fairs generate significant turnover for the local food service and hospitality sector as well as for service providers and retail businesses.
As a consequence of numerous postponements and the strong desire expressed by exhibiting companies and their guests to hold physical events again, the trade fair calendar for May and the following summer months is packed. Traditionally summer is not a very busy time for fair operators; major trade events are typically scheduled for spring and autumn. Hamburg is no exception – May and September are top seasons for numerous events, large and small.
Following a few guest events in April, INTERNORGA and the manufacturing fair NORTEC, which had been postponed from the first quarter, took place from the end of May. In addition, the Online Marketing Rockstar Festival opened at the scheduled time in May, drawing 70,000 visitors and occupying the entire campus. Hamburg counted a total of 14 trade fairs between May and July, an unusually high number for this season.
September is the month for major events. In addition to the two flagship fairs, SMM, the leading international maritime trade fair, and WindEnergy Hamburg – which are a major challenge even in “normal” years because they are spaced only a few days apart – an additional event will be celebrated between the two in 2022: the HAMBURG PORT ANNIVERSARY, rescheduled from May. Hamburg Messe und Congress has been in charge of organising this popular festival since 1994.
All in all, the 2022 calendar includes nine HMC-organised events and around 30 guest events, with an estimated combined turnover of 97 million euros.
In October 2021, Hamburg Messe und Congress started preparations for another debut, shortly after the first-ever PHOTOPIA Hamburg had ended. In partnership with OMR (Online Marketing Rockstars), HMC announced the FUTURE MOVES – New Mobility Summit. 17 May 2022 was the date set for the inaugural FUTURE MOVES event. For a whole day it occupied the grand stage of the largest OMR festival to date.
In Hall B7, moderator Kai Pflaume opened the summit, which was held exclusively as a congress in its first year. He presented top-flight speakers such as Sophia Rödiger from bloXmove, Anna-Theresa Korbutt, CEO of the Hamburg public transport network, the music producer, frontman of the Black Eyed Peas and tech investor will.i.am, and the Danish star architect Bjarke Ingels.
The summit focuses on forward-looking concepts, solutions and ideas which are being discussed and promoted internationally. It aims to include anyone who can contribute to the mobility transition, expressly including partners whose names may not be the first to come to mind when thinking about mobility. The goal is to establish a leading international event for zero-carbon mobility in Hamburg. The concept includes an annual summit, a community platform moderated by an editorial team year-round, as well as podcasts and other dialogue formats.
Hamburg is Germany’s innovation hub for mobility, an official EU model region for urban airborne mobility, and the “RealLab For Digital Mobility”. As the host city to FUTURE MOVES – New Mobility Summit, Hamburg is asserting its role as an international pioneer. Both HMC and OMR have intentionally abandoned conventional approaches to the design of industry events. “The question of what future mobility will look like affects us all. We would like to give this topic a new, large and unique stage,” said Bernd Aufderheide.
From the beginning the organisers want to involve as many national and international stakeholders from the worlds of politics, business and society as possible. The FUTURE MOVES – New Mobility Summit is slated to take place annually, with new formats continuously being added. Plans are to make it accessible to the general public eventually.
The utopian city of the future envisioned as a biotope: At the Floriade Expo 2022 in Almere, Germany will be represented with a concept based on interactivity and participation. The world expo of gardening and landscaping, entitled “Growing Green Cities”, will be open until 9 October 2022. Under the title “Biotopia – Growing Community”, the German garden invites visitors for a trip into the urban future, highlighting solutions for the sustainable coexistence of city and nature. The German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture has charged Hamburg Messe und Congress with the event as a general contractor. This is the seventh time HMC has been contracted for a global expo, following the German pavilions at the 2008, 2012 and 2017 expos, the Hamburg House at the 2010 expo, and the German gardens at the 2016 and 2019 horticultural expos.
The central part of the German garden is a green atrium, surrounded by a two-storey wooden pavilion with a rooftop garden, solar panels, wind turbines and green façades. With all the greenery, the building itself forms a living ecosystem whose appearance changes as the Floriade Expo continues and the plants develop. The interactive exhibition showcases best-practice examples, projects and up-to-date information on the four subtopics of the Floriade Expo. The concept of communal horticultural design is the leitmotif of the entire exhibition: The first room, named “Healthy Urban Living”, highlights organisations and projects from Germany which advocate green urban areas and social gathering spaces. Visitors can sit on a bicycle and push the pedals to activate energy wheels. The “Green City” room showcases infrastructure initiatives designed to mitigate the consequences of heavy precipitation, droughts and air pollution. A water game invites visitors to activate a water cycle. Future energy generation is the subject of the “Regenerative Energy” room, while the “Local Food” room addresses sustainable food production and responsible food consumption.
A cultural programme accompanies Germany’s participation in the expo. As a smart extra, visitors entering the garden receive a wristband enabling them to activate the exhibits at the expo, collect icons at every station and use them in an interactive screen projection to visualise their idea of the green city of the future. To make sure nobody leaves hungry, the restaurant EATTOPIA treats guests to tasty meals and beverages from around Germany.
