The IFA not in Berlin? Hard to imagine, but the threat is there: in the capital, behind the scenes of the exhibition center under the radio tower, a tug-of-war is underway for one of the most successful international trade fairs in the country. It’s about Berlin rope teams and control over a lucrative leading trade fair – it’s hardly surprising that a move to another city is on the cards, even if the IFA’s departure from Berlin is rather unlikely. Still.
The first “Great German Radio Exhibition” took place in 1924 in the House of the Radio Industry in Berlin’s Westend – where the exhibition center is today. In the 1950s and 60s, the radio exhibition also made guest appearances in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Stuttgart. Since 1971, the “International Consumer Electronics Fair”, now just the IFA, has been firmly anchored in Berlin. It is not only the largest European order fair for the electronics industry, but also a crowd puller – and an economic factor. A large.
IFA: Leading trade fair and crowd puller
That arouses desires. The organizer and brand owner of the IFA is the Gfu, which used to stand for “Society for the Promotion of Consumer Electronics”. Shareholders are numerous well-known manufacturers, including Miele, Panasonic or Sony. Together with Messe Berlin, Gfu has made the IFA what it is today over the past decades: the leading European trade fair for the industry and a crowd puller. But now there are cracks in the long-term relationship.
Apparently, the Gfu wants to develop the IFA further and is making plans in which the Berlin trade fair company only appears as the lessor of the site. So far, Messe and Gfu have acted together as organizers of the IFA – a lucrative arrangement for both sides, which is contractually regulated up to and including 2023. Negotiations on a possible continuation of the cooperation are currently underway.
Gfu envisions them differently in the future. As reported by the daily mirror, Gfu has teamed up with the British event giant Clarion Events and a Berlin investment company called Aquila. This consortium wants to organize the IFA in the future, which, according to the report, has yielded five to ten million euros in profits in recent years. The trade fair company, as a pure lessor, should no longer see any of this.
Göke, Gegenbauer and the Gfu
Gfu’s move has raised eyebrows in the capital. The supervisory board of the trade fair is talking about a “gag contract”. It is also more than spicy that Aquila is a holding company of the family of building cleaning tycoon Werner Gegenbauer. The business of Gegenbauer’s family holding company has been managed since last year by Christian Göke, who was CEO of Berliner Messe AG until the end of 2020.
Everyone knows each other in Berlin: Göke also sits on the supervisory board of Bundesliga soccer club Hertha BSC, whose president is Werner Gegenbauer. Göke’s involvement was a nuisance to the Senate and the trade fair company. “Indeed, we think it is very difficult for a former managing director of Messe Berlin to be part of the new Gfu consortium,” explains a spokesman for Economics Senator Stephan Schwarz (independent) to heise online.
The Gfu does not want to comment on the plans, but does not deny them either. Clarion does not respond to a request. A spokesman for Messe Berlin refers to the contract, which runs until 2023, and the “constant exchange with Gfu”. So you’re still talking to each other, but don’t want to comment on the details. The Tagesspiegel calls the consortium’s approach “aggressive”: employees of the trade fair are to be poached, and there is a threat of emigration to another city.
The state of Berlin cannot have any interest in this. Like other major events, the IFA is an important economic factor for the capital. The trade fair company belongs to the state of Berlin, which is why the Senate is also monitoring the processes closely. “Of course we want to keep the IFA in Berlin, because the IFA simply belongs to Berlin,” explains the spokesman for the Economics Senator. He had already put it on record in December that he “also saw good chances of bringing new leading trade fairs to the city”.
“Berlin cannot be blackmailed”
With Grüner Woche, Fruit Logistica, ITB, Innotrans and IFA, Berlin can already boast a number of leading international trade fairs. But the trade fair business has suffered greatly from the corona pandemic; After numerous cancellations, there is a huge hole in the books of the trade fair company. For 2020 alone, the trade fair reported a loss of 66 million euros. But this is not the only reason why the Senate will want to prevent the IFA from moving to another city if possible. “But that will not happen at any price, because neither the trade fair nor the state of Berlin can be blackmailed,” says the Senate spokesman.
What the state of Berlin, as the owner of the trade fair, probably doesn’t like is that the new consortium is intended to privatize that part of the IFA profits that previously went into the coffers of the state’s own trade fair company. When he left the trade fair, Göke had raved about “an immense amount of money on the market”. The new consortium now wants to tap into this vein of gold – and boot out the trade fair company.
Whether this will happen is currently still open. The parties are still talking to each other. It is also not unusual for trade fair organizers to openly consider leaving if they are no longer completely satisfied with the venue. But these are not always empty threats, as the Leipzig Games Convention had to experience first-hand.
(vbr)
–
