The Hannover Messe Digital Edition came to an end last Friday. Those responsible at Deutsche Messe are satisfied. Dr. Jochen Köckler, Chairman and CEO of Deutsche Messe: "The digital edition of Hannover Messe impressively demonstrated the innovative strength of companies from the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and IT sectors. At the same time, it has shown that the trade fair of the future is hybrid."

The Digital Edition was also opened by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She was joined on Monday morning by Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia, this year's partner country. 90,000 registered participants informed themselves about the 10,500 products and innovations from the 1,800 exhibitors. In the conference programme, 1,500 experts discussed topics such as Industry 4.0, digitalization of industrial processes, supply chain management, lightweight construction and hydrogen and electromobility.

Digitally successful, but...

Köckler: "The popularity of the digital Hannover Messe exceeded our expectations. Nevertheless, it has become clear that a digital trade fair cannot replace the magic of a physical event." He referred to face-to-face technical discussions, concrete leads at the trade fair stand, the haptic experience directly on the product or chance encounters that can lead to new business partnerships. "The core of the interpersonal is simply missing," says Köckler.

Nevertheless, Köckler believes that this confirms that the company is on the right path "to bring together the best of the digital and physical worlds in the future, based on the experiences of the digital Hannover Messe, in order to create a holistic hybrid trade fair experience for our customers".

Köckler draws a positive balance

During the five live trade fair days, the 90,000 participants generated more than 3.5 million page views and 700,000 search queries in the exhibitor and product search. In addition, the new conference and exhibitor streams were viewed around 140,000 times. Köckler: "The Digital Edition was a successful test and use case for us in every respect. We wanted to find out what concrete benefits digital formats bring to exhibitors and visitors at Hannover Messe."

Köckler's assessment is positive: "Among other things, we now know that we can also reach completely new exhibitors and visitors via digital formats. If we transfer these findings to our physical events, we will maximize the reach of our trade fairs many times over."

From next Monday, all contributions will be available on demand. The exhibitor and product search will also remain online. This means that participants can continue to register and use the offer beyond the live trade fair week and get in touch with exhibitors and speakers by email.

The next hybrid Hannover Messe will be held from April 25 to 29, 2022. The partner country is Portugal.