A trade fair stand that combines real and digital worlds

The research laboratory of NürnbergMesse is called "Incubator". This includes employees who deal with the current trends in the exhibition industry and keep an eye on developments in the individual sectors of the trade fairs. New event formats are also constantly being developed in the Incubator, for example on the future topic of hydrogen. How exhibitors and trade visitors move in the digital and hybrid exhibition concepts of NürnbergMesse is a relatively new question that the employees are dealing with. A project group consisting of employees from the incubator, the event teams and the services department investigated what exhibitors of the digital formats miss most. The result was simple and impressive at the same time: the chance.

The project team came to this conclusion in workshops and a large number of telephone interviews they conducted with NürnbergMesse customers. One difficulty with the digital exhibition presence was mentioned again and again by the exhibitors, reports Sarah Kaiser from the IWA OutdoorClassics event team: "The random factor is missing in the digital space. Our exhibitors miss the trade visitors who happen to stop by the booth or are attracted to the exhibitor's presentation." Maintaining existing customers is very possible in the digital trade fair format, but acquiring new customers is much more difficult, exhibitors reported.

To enable the need for random contacts even with purely digital exhibition participation, the project group developed the concept of a hybrid exhibition stand, the remote exhibition stand "Connect". This enables exhibitors to present their product in real terms at a NürnbergMesse event and to connect their product and sales specialists digitally, depending on which contact person the trade visitor wants to be contacted at the time.

For this purpose, the Remote Exhibition Stand Connect has one or more ChatRooms with screens and headsets, via which the trade visitor can talk digitally to the specialists of the exhibiting company. The exhibiting company can thus keep the number of stand personnel small and digitally connect experts. Particularly against the background of the current travel restrictions, this offers advantages, explains Andreas Will from the Services division: "International companies can connect their employees to the exhibitions in Nuremberg from anywhere in the world with the Remote Exhibition Stand Connect."

The new exhibition stand, which links analogue events even more closely with digital formats, is being built by NürnbergMesse's ServicePartner, Messebau Wörnlein. In future, exhibitors will also be able to configure the stand themselves online and integrate it into their existing exhibition concept. Great importance was attached to hygiene requirements during the concept development. For example, the various ChatRooms are separated from each other by glass panes. The development team is also particularly proud of the sustainable concept of the new trade fair stand, which consists almost exclusively of reusable elements. The new Remote Exhibition Stand Connect has been available to order via the NürnbergMesse websites since July, so that exhibitors can use it for the rest of the exhibition in autumn, for example at FACHPACK.