40 years of FachPack: Milestones of a trade fair

FachPack, the European Trade Fair for Packaging, Processes and Technology, will have a special reason to celebrate from 24 to 26 September 2019: it's 40 years since it first opened its doors. A lot has happened over the years, from name and rotation changes to growth in space, exhibitors and visitors, and milestones such as the launch of the first homepage. We rummaged through our archives and found some historical trade fair photos that tell the story of FachPack. Have fun clicking through!

Image 1: FachPack begins in 1979 as a regional packaging exhibition in the Exhibition Centre Nuremberg with 88 exhibitors and around 2,000 trade visitors. Only 100 postcards were sent out to attract exhibitors at that time!

Image 2: Historical exhibition site: Aerial view of NürnbergMesse in 1979.

Image 3: 1985: At that time still under the name "Verpackung", but the logo has remained faithful to this day.

Image 4: 1991-1992: Renamed FachPack. With 250 exhibitors and 13,224 trade visitors, the number of exhibitors has roughly tripled since the beginning and the number of visitors has increased six-fold. Due to the increased interest, a change of rotation took place in 1992. From now on, FachPack is always held in two consecutive years and takes a break in the third year.

Image 5: 1995: The expansion of the catchment area bears fruit. More trade visitors from the new Eastern and Southern European reform countries Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia come to Nürnberg. The VDW (Association of the Corrugated Board Industry) holds the Corrugated Board Day - today the "Forum Wellpappe" - at FachPack for the first time.

Image 6: 1997-1998: Due to the rapid spread of the Internet, fachpack.de is launched as a homepage. 12 percent of the 577 exhibitors have their headquarters abroad. As a further accompanying event, the German Packaging Award of the German Packaging Institute (dvi) is held annually at FachPack for the first time. In 1998, the 20,000 visitor mark is broken.

Image 7: 2001-2004: FachPack and the newly designed PrintPack (trade fair for packaging printing, label printing and packaging production) are held as a trade fair duo for the first time. The second FachPack in the 21st century cracks the 1,000 exhibitor mark and reaches almost 30,000 trade visitors. Since 2004, FachPack has been held from Tuesday to Thursday (previously from Wednesday to Friday).

Image 8: 2012: the 37,000th trade visitor was counted shortly before the end of the event. With its 1,466 exhibitors, FachPack occupies eleven exhibition halls.

Image 9: 2018-2019: In 2018, FachPack occupied 12 exhibition halls for the first time with a new record of 1,644 exhibitors (38% international). In 2019, the 40th year of FachPack, 1,600 exhibitors and 45,000 trade visitors are expected again. By the way: 12 of these exhibitors are "exhibitors from the very beginning" - they have been at every FachPack for 40 years.