NürnbergMesse: Record sales for a jubilee year

Nuremberg, 16 July 2024 – For its 50th birthday, NürnbergMesse is anticipating a very special present: in the 2024 jubilee year, the company expects record sales of more than EUR 350 million. Yet the preceding 2023 year – an uneven-numbered year with fewer events in the cycle – was also impressive. The 150 events that the NürnbergMesse Group held around the world (2022: 155) drew a total of 28,135 exhibitors (2022: 23,457) and some 1.3 million visitors (2022: 989,338) onto 904,466 square metres of net space (2022: 841,612 square metres). The high levels of attendance at trade fairs, conferences and other events generated sales of EUR 265 million for the Group, the second-highest figure for any uneven-numbered year. NürnbergMesse thus almost returned to the sales level of the pre-pandemic 2019 year (EUR 285 million). “Our trade fair business recovered from the pandemic far faster than expected, and is growing very nicely. Given this tailwind, in our jubilee year we’re aiming to set a new sales record, and are also investing in our future”, said NürnbergMesse Group CEO Peter Ottmann.

The percentages of Group sales for the 2023 year came to 29% for own and partner events, around 28% for guest events and NürnbergConvention, about 23% for MesseService including domestic subsidiaries Holtmann and Lehrieder, and 20% for the International segment. The large number of 150 events in Nuremberg and around the world meant that NürnbergMesse was holding an average of three events every week.

The trade fair agenda for the 2024 fiscal year includes a total of 137 events, 68 of them in Nuremberg. Following the successful 2023 acquisition of trade fair organiser trendfairs, this year the events portfolio will also see the addition of five high-level specialty trade fairs in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland for the kitchen, interior design, and related equipment segments. An especially noteworthy item among the new formats is the first “NürnbergMesse Christkindlesmarkt” in India. This new Christmas market will be held in the IT metropolis of Bengaluru from 30 November to 1 December 2024, and is being organised by subsidiary NürnbergMesse India in collaboration with the German Consulate and “invest in Bavaria”.

Vigorous investments in Exhibition Centre, services, and digital

Parts of the Exhibition Centre have been in operation since the company was founded in 1974. To make the venue fit for the future, NürnbergMesse is investing in an up-to-date, sustainable infrastructure – including more than EUR 50 million in this jubilee year alone. In addition to the exhibition halls themselves, the work will also include renovating the energy systems and modernising the NXT74 employee building at the NCC Mitte entrance. By the end of 2025, the building will have new work environments and offices for the team. One mainstay of NürnbergMesse’s sustainability initiatives is the effort to make the power supply  CO₂-neutral by 2028. A first segment of the hybrid energy supply will be complete by mid-2025. Some 21,000 photovoltaic modules on seven exhibition halls and a parking building will then supply the company with some 9 million kilowatt-hours of green solar electricity each year – enough power for a town of around 7,000 inhabitants. The first rooftop installations are already generating up to 30 percent of the facility’s electric power consumption. In addition to the photovoltaic system and its storage batteries, NürnbergMesse will also be investing in other technologies, such as a new power-to-heat system. Similarly, by the end of 2026 the number of electric charging stations on the site will be increased from the current roughly 40 to 200.

The company also continues to invest in digitalising its products and services. Services’ contribution to sales is steadily growing; in 2023 it came to more than EUR 70 million, more than one-third of the total sales for NürnbergMesse GmbH. The company plans to continuously increase this figure by expanding its shop environment for e-commerce and further digitalising its event arrangements. At the same time, it’s important to heighten the relevance of data, which is why NürnbergMesse will also be investing heavily in its IT systems and in expanding artificial intelligence (AI) in the coming years. Said NürnbergMesse Group CFO Dirk Blum, the Executive Board member in charge of finances and the venue, echoing  his fellow Executive Board members Dr Thomas Koch (Group Development), Petra Wolf (Product Management) and Dr Martin Kassubek (Business Development): “Based on our vigorous business results, our team is advancing our transformation in many areas, ensuring that NürnbergMesse will be well prepared for the future.”

Nuremberg remains no. 1 exhibition destination for start-ups

The rising stars of today are often the exhibitors of tomorrow, so this year NürnbergMesse will again offer shared pavilions for start-ups at all of its roughly 50 trade fairs, including the pavilions supported by the German government. In this all other respects, Nuremberg remains the number one exhibition destination for start-ups, just as it was last year. With BayStartUP as a partner, and with its long-standing connection with start-up hub ZOLLHOF, NürnbergMesse is also highlighting its position of responsibility as an important economic engine and start-up hub for the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region.

Personnel

The company’s workforce grew 8.5% in the 2023 year, rising to an average of 1,097 employees worldwide for the NürnbergMesse Group as a whole (2022: 1,011). That figure includes 546 employees at NürnbergMesse GmbH (2022: 545). The company is also continuing its focussed investments in training its future employees. In 2023 it had 38 apprentices, 20 students in dual-track university and practical study programmes, and ten trainees.