spoga+gafa 2021: New date supports the BBQ industry

spoga+gafa is the largest trade fair for grills & BBQs worldwide. We spoke with the Director, Stefan Lohrberg, about the advantages the new trade fair date brings the industry.

As the world's largest trade fair for garden lifestyle, spoga+gafa offers an excellent opportunity to present innovations and network at international level. The visitors can experience the entire world of barbecuing here and the largest coherent offer of grill and BBQ products. Around 40,000 trade visitors, 65 percent of whom come from abroad, turn the trade fair into the industry's hotspot. Whereby most of the visitors are top decision-makers. Furthermore, spoga+gafa has developed into a globally relevant added value and communications platform. There is thus no other place worldwide where themes and trends can or could be presented and discussed better.

The current COVID-19 developments and the economic situation have had an increasingly strong impact on the situation of spoga+gafa. Furthermore, the travel situation, especially on an inter-continental level, remains to be uncertain at present. The intensive preparations for the trade fair and the package of measures involved in staging the trade fair in a Corona-conform way ultimately did not suffice to dispel the insecurities of the trade fair participants. For this reason, Koelnmesse reassessed the entire situation together with the advisory board and decided to cancel spoga+gafa 2020, thus accommodating the wishes of a large number of exhibitors and visitors from the industry not to stage spoga+gafa 2020.

The aim of our discussions with the green industry is to further reinforce the strengths and market relevance of spoga+gafa. The adapted ordering behaviour within many parts of the industry that has occurred over the years is the focal point of this decision. By rescheduling the date, spoga+gafa will thus in future be held at a more convenient point in time regarding the ordering process for the majority of the industry players. In 2021, spoga+gafa will be staged from May 30 to June 1 as a one-off occurrence - the dynamics of the past months didn't allow for a different date. However, in the subsequent years it is planned that the trade fair takes place in mid or at the end of June, in order to more readily support the order timing of our exhibitors and visitors, especially in terms of the specialised trade.

Rescheduling the trade fair date to the June, allows the exhibitors from the grills & BBQ section to introduce innovations to their customers much earlier. In turn, we are also doing more justice to the changed ordering behaviour of this industry. The coming spoga+gafa offers further advantages. In addition to the new products for the current season, projects that are in the development phase can also be presented: Thanks to digital presentation areas, the exhibitors can place the spotlight on themselves far beyond their own exhibition stand. Our event area with its popular cooking shows and cooperations with leading media partners attracts additional attention. Furthermore, we are currently already working on new, innovative communication and marketing packages for our exhibitors.

We are delighted to report that we are receiving a wide-spread good response from the industry. In the first year, some of the exhibitors will find it difficult to adapt to the new cycle. These customers are however informing us that the changed schedule will quickly become customary and thus ultimately assert itself. The new date of spoga+gafa and the earlier trade fair contact will help the specialised trade and large-surface outlets in and throughout the season - according to the feedback from the trade.