Although late in coming, some helpful further information from the new owners of Golf Europe throws some new light on the proposed 2012 trade fair and future events…
In the light of dwindling attendance figures from 2002 until 2010, by the time of the show’s last appearance at MesseStadt (the monster venue at the end of the U2 UBahn line) in 2009, the gaps in the floorplan were starting to look too painfully obvious; hence the move to the comparatively intimate M,O,C in the north of the city where it had been held up until 2002.
According Augsburg’s Exhibition Manager Melanie Söhnel there exists a business relationship between Bavaria’s three conference centres Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg. It is reasonable to assume that what have been referred to as strategic decisions can be taken to mean Munich as a venue for the golf show was simply no longer financially viable. MesseStadt’s revenues will have constricted along with the dwindling numbers of exhibitors and visitors. The move to the smaller M,O,C in 2009 (at the request of exhibitors and visitors, says Frau Söhnel) may have made the event appear fuller and busier, but numbers continued downward.
Concurrently, the overwhelming feeling began to grow that the event was becoming just a German trade show. It all contributed towards exhibitors and visitors putting the expense of supporting the show under every-increasing scrutiny to justify it at all. Hotels, subsistence and taxi fares all reflected the prices one would normally expect of a regional capital city hosting a major party like OktoberFest. And as more people lost the appetite for paying €10 for a beer it’s no surprise Golf Europe 2011 was ‘postponed’.
Of the three Bavarian venues Augsburg is the smallest. Munich boasts 605,000m² of exhibition space (between the 3 sites MesseStadt, ICM and M,O,C), compared to Nuremberg’s 210,000m², while Augsburg has a positively boutique 75,000m², supposedly proportional to their respective populations :1.35 million, 506,000 and 264,000*. And so Messe Augsburg can reasonably argue that for them, at least, an event like Golf Europe is a much bigger deal than it is for Munich or Nuremberg. Implicit in this is the idea that service levels and keen pricing will be much more in evidence than in previous years at Munich. With this in mind, the new venue claims to have turned all Munich’s negatives into positives.
“The most striking change for the exhibitors will be the general decrease of costs to participate at Golf Europe,” explains Melanie Söhnel. “We can offer better conditions in terms of accommodation and travel costs, due to the fact that the show will be held one week before the famous Oktoberfest. Our location is near the [Augsburg]city centre, enjoys excellent accessibility by car, bus and train and our incidental costs as well as our price structure for services is much lower than it has ever been in Munich. “
That’s a hot-button. And really, if everyone were honest about it, other aspects like picture-postcard scenery, choice of half a dozen curry restaurants (important!) and it being the home town of Bernhard Langer, are entirely incidental.
She continues: “We will go back to the roots and concentrate on the most important thing; the networking and communication issue.” And to that end, the new format Golf Europe will feature a demo day modelled on the pre-show event held the day before the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.
The only other curiosity at this stage is the enhanced involvement of the German PGA, and specifically its ability to access directly quality visitors.
We await further details from the German PGA on how they plan to achieve this.
* Out of interest, the China National Convention Centre that hosts the China Golf 2012 Show in Beijing (see previous blog posting of November 2 “…Write-off or the Right Stuff”) offers over 452,000m² over 8 floors but under one roof. http://cgs.chinagolfshow.com/en/Home/ . Those with a mathematical mind might care to work out likely m² rental based on the space of the Bavarian venues.
For more information on Bavarian exhibition venues:
Munich – http://www.messe-muenchen.de/link/en/16629181
Nuremberg – http://www.nuernbergmesse.de/en/company/
Augsburg – http://www.bavaria.by/fair-augsburg
Messe Augsburg