NürnbergMesse welcomes 50 millionth visitor during International Toy Fair

New record broken: In its 50^th year, NürnbergMesse is very pleased to welcome its 50 millionth visitor to the Exhibition Centre during Spielwarenmesse, the International Toy Fair. This honour went to US toy retailer David Castillo from Utah, who was welcomed by Nuremberg Lord Mayor and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of NürnbergMesse GmbH Marcus König, NürnbergMesse Group CEO Peter Ottmann and Florian Hess, member of the Spielwarenmesse Management Board. As a small token of thanks, NürnbergMesse gave him a gingerbread heart with “50,000,000” on it, and Spielwarenmesse presented him with the “red rocking horse”, the symbol of the fair.

The timing couldn’t have been better: The 50 millionth visitor to the Exhibition Centre Nuremberg arrived in NürnbergMesse’s own anniversary year, and during the Spielwarenmesse, the International Toy Fair. After all, one factor that helped to bring NürnbergMesse into existence was the fact the Spielwarenmesse – then still located on the Berliner Platz in Nuremberg – was bursting at the seams by the end of the 1960s. In the search for a suitable new location for the trade fair, they finally found what they were looking for in the city’s Langwasser district. “The Spielwarenmesse is a flagship for Nuremberg as a business and exhibition venue, and its visitors have made a significant contribution to the success story of NürnbergMesse. Congratulations on achieving this new record of fifty million visitors!” says Nuremberg Lord Mayor Marcus König. NürnbergMesse Group CEO Peter Ottmann adds: “In our anniversary year, we are very pleased to see David Castillo break this record at the Spielwarenmesse, which shows once again that the world feels at home at our events.”

First toy fair in Langwasser breaks the mould

The new exhibition centre passed its baptism of fire with the 24^th International Toy Fair from 2 to 9 February 1973 – which hosted almost five times the number of exhibitors and offered almost twenty times the exhibition space. NürnbergMesse was officially established when it was entered in the commercial register on 5 April 1974. “We would like to congratulate NürnbergMesse on its 50^th anniversary and the 50 millionth visitor to the exhibition centre,” says Florian Hess, Member of the Management Board of Spielwarenmesse eG. “I am particularly pleased that we can welcome this visitor during our world-leading event, and that he is also an international trade visitor from the US.” The number of visitors to the Exhibition Centre Nuremberg has grown from 396,000 in 1974, the year it was founded, to 10 million in 1987, 25 million in 1999 and 40 million in 2012.      

In 2019, Spielwarenmesse eG and NürnbergMesse took an early opportunity to extend their long-standing partnership through to 2028.