News Let The Show Begin! Growth in all areas - global meeting place for retailers and the media - iZone & eLibrary - the trends of the future Booking levels for IFA 2011 have posed an exciting challenge for IFA’s coorganisers gfu and Messe Berlin. This year’s IFA has reported growth in all sections and was already overbooked several months before the event. Messe Berlin COO, Dr. Christian Göke, speaking at a pre-show event said, “The halls are fully booked up. The only way now to create extra space is by exploiting outdoor areas, for example by setting up temporary buildings or by using the passageways connecting the halls in completely new ways. These often quite unusual display areas require our exhibitors to be highly creative and flexible, and we expressly offer them our thanks.” Organisers are confident that IFA will equal the record set by exhibitor attendance at last year’s anniversary edition of the show. IFA - a global marketplace IFA is at home in Europe, the world’s largest marketplace, and it takes place at an ideal time to make preparations, along with retailers, for decisive end-of-year sales. This year, retailers and the industry are particularly confident that IFA will boost business. Jens Heithecker, the executive director of IFA at Messe Berlin (see also interview in this edition) said, “IFA’s success is the result of efficiently gathering the global industry, retailers and the media in one place. Here, retailers occupy a central role. For this reason we will continue to work on integrating and interacting even more strongly with our long-standing strategic partners Euronics, EP: Electronic Partner, expert, E K s e r v i c e g r o u p a n d Telering, as well as with new international trading partners.” Trend of the future – the IFA iZone and IFA eLibrary The launch of this special section in 2010 was proof yet again of IFA’s pioneering role among the trade fairs around the world. Following the successful debut of the IFA iZone and IFA “IFA’s success is the result of efficiently gathering the global industry, retailers and the media in one place” eLibrary these two sections are expected to grow significantly at IFA 2011. The market impact of iPad and iPhone products and the numerous applications for this family of devices is increasing all time, so that they will be a major attraction for trade visitors and the general public at IFA. 4
News The Best Yet IFA continues to grow in size, scope and stature Jens Heithecker Executive Director, IFA Interview by Richard Barnes IFA 2011 has recorded a n i n c r e a s e i n attendance over last year’s event, according to Jens Heithecker, IFA executive director at Messe Berlin. numbers of buyers and manufacturers, the event is also a ‘must’ for the world’s press. Last year, close to 1,900 international journalists made their way to Berlin, alongside hundreds of German reporters. “The presentation of global innovations that used to happen in other regions in October has now shifted to IFA, because this is the right time to prepare the retail sector and the consumer markets for the main business season,” Heithecker says. The challenge of there being such high demand for exhibition space has led to the construction of three temporary halls. “The first thing we did was look at how we could optimise the existing space,” Heithecker says. “And then we decided to erect one more temporary hall than we did last year, plus two of the halls are bigger than last year. It’s very important demand there might be by then. So, in fact, we may well be faced with the same situation all over again…” T h e s p e c i a l i s t R & D / prototype zone TecWatch w a s t h e o n l y s u c h “specialised” space until last year, when the iZone and eLibrary were introduced. “TecWatch has been a place of genuine discovery since it started,” Heithecker says. For example, in 1997, the MP3 was first demonstrated there and, of course, no one had any idea at the time of the impact this technology would have. We hope that the area will remain a place where you can get a taste of the sort of technology that will be mainstream in 10 or 15 years’ time. He adds: “The iZone, which is a space dedicated to the Apple ecosystem, has grown by 50%-60% this year and now occupies two halls instead of one. We are very proud of the holistic presentation of the “It’s very important that, even though we are the biggest show in the world, we remain open to new participants” “The total exhibition space will cover 140,200 square metres,” Heithecker says. “The problem we have, which some people would regard as a lucky thing, is lack of exhibition space. This is due to the double-digit growth in attendance from every industry segment.” The number of specialist and other retail visitors is also up. “We find it interesting that we have more trade visitors every year from other kinds of retail, specifically from telecommunications and IT,” Heithecker adds. Alongside attracting record that even though we are the biggest CE show in the world, we remain open to new participants. We are going to construct a new permanent hall, called the Deutschland Halle, which will be ready in 2014. The new building will solve the current problem, but we are not sure how much more iZone, which we believe fits perfectly with the Apple brand.” The eLibrary houses tablets of every brand, alongside content creators and publishers. “What we learned last year was that, in Europe, this is still a young industry,” Heithecker admits. “But the market is growing and it’s definitely something for the future. An innovation this year is that the international media centre will be in the same space as the eLibrary, putting the world’s press alongside an industry that we believe will be very important in the future". www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Monday 29 th August 2011 5
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