This year's Hannover Messe will take place from May 30 to June 2. According to Deutsche Messe AG, the postponement was made in close consultation with the Exhibitors' Advisory Board and the partner associations VDMA and ZVEI. Due to the high capacity utilization of the exhibition grounds in Hanover in early summer, Hannover Messe will be shortened to four days this year.

"Due to the continuing high incidences in Germany and many neighboring countries, we have decided together with our exhibitors to postpone the Hannover Messe to early summer this year. Last year, we realized that the summer months are best suited for major events during the pandemic. Since we cannot currently assume that the corona situation will have eased sufficiently by April, we are offering our customers the greatest possible planning security with the early postponement in order to present their innovations at the world's most important industrial trade fair," explains Dr. Jochen Köckler, CEO of Deutsche Messe.

According to company spokesperson Onuora Ogbukagu, Deutsche Messe is expecting more than 3,000 exhibitors; this figure had also been targeted for the event in April. In 2023, Hannover Messe will once again take place as usual over five days in April.

Associations: postponement the right decision

"It is right to postpone the Hannover Messe to a later date. This can further increase the vaccination rate, which is in the interests of exhibitors and visitors to the trade fair. In addition, a later event date means a higher probability of attracting more national and international visitors - which benefits everyone involved. The mechanical and plant engineering industry will present itself in Hanover as a technological enabler of climate protection and digitalization, as well as highlighting its role as a supplier and user of cutting-edge technology for networked and intelligent production," says VDMA Managing Director Thilo Brodtmann.

Wolfgang Weber, Chairman of the ZVEI Executive Board, also supports the postponement: "As the world's most important industrial trade fair, Hannover Messe is the showcase to the world for our companies. The postponement is therefore the right decision under the given circumstances. We are convinced that we will be able to reach a larger audience in the summer for the topics surrounding Industry 4.0 and its contributions to sustainability. With our innovations in the areas of digitalization, electrification, energy efficiency and automation, the electrical and digital industry is shaping the industrial transformation towards a climate-neutral circular economy. We want to demonstrate what this path can look like to as wide an audience as possible. After all, we can only master this challenge by working together. Hannover Messe offers the perfect setting for this."