Farming.plus: When competitors go together
Messe Luzern is launching two digital extensions of trade shows: one for its own «Suisse Tier» trade show and one in collaboration with Olma Messen’s «Tier und Technik.».
In the past, it was impossible for two competitors to work together on trade shows with similar themes. And to do so digitally. That benefits both. The eleventh "Suisse Tier" of Messe Luzern from November 22 to 24, 2019, with 200 exhibitors, is the trade fair for livestock farming, while the "Tier und Technik" of Olma Messen St. Gallen from February 20 to 23, 2020, is also a trade fair for livestock farming. Now the two organizers are working together to create Farming.plus, a joint digital platform for the benefit of the agricultural community.
Swiss trade show organizers were pretty much the first to understand: If we want to save our trade fairs into the 3rd millennium, there is no way around their digital extension to 365 days a year. Messe Luzern calls the hybrid form of trade fairs + online shop window "digital meeting place". The point of this is to strengthen the trade fairs and the way to do this lies in content or rather in the famous storytelling. "With authentic success stories of our exhibitors, we trigger emotions and arouse the attention of visitors" says exhibition manager Luzia Roos. This is to accompany the exhibitors in their search for new customers. "If we want to make our exhibitors successful in the long term, we have to make it possible to experience what they present at trade fairs online for 365 days," adds Messe Luzern CEO Markus Lauber.
Swiss trade fair organizers are moving forward with digital extension and Messe Luzern was the first to coin the term digital extension for this. In this regard, Messe Luzern is already working with the Prodex machine tool trade fair from Exhibit & More of the MCH Group and with Messe Stuttgart on the T4M project and is an inspirer here.
Nicolo Paganini, director of Olma Messen, says it makes sense for (note: competing) trade fair organizers to work together more for the benefit of exhibitors and visitors. This will now be the case in the joint online platform "Farming.plus". It is to become a meeting place for the entire agricultural sector, not just individual exhibitors or visitors. Such a digital meeting place of two trade fair organizers is a novelty for Switzerland and quite certainly even in Europe.
