Two of Germany’s leading refrigeration and air conditioning organisations have written to NürnbergMesse, the organisers of Chillventa 2020, pleading for the event to take place this year as scheduled.
The NürnbergMesse has been in discussion with exhibitors and partners and has opened an online survey to gauge opinions on the exhibition’s viability in the wake of coronavirus. While the German exhibition industry is pushing for events to restart in September this has not yet been ratified by the government. Some say the event has been thrown into further doubt with the recent cancellation of the annual Oktoberfest, scheduled to take place in Munich , just three weeks before Chillventa.
The Federal Guild of the German Refrigeration Industry (BIV) and the Central Association of Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Heat Pumps (ZVKKW) have written an open letter to the Chillventa organisers pleading for “the most important leading trade fair in our industry” to take place.
The organisations accept that if the event takes place there may be fewer visitors, especially from abroad, “but we have to send a signal that it will continue”, they say.
They insist that the Chillventa trade fair cannot be compared to the Oktoberfest: “Even if the Oktoberfest has now been canceled, it has to be said that Chillventa is a business event with completely different framework conditions.”
The letter argues that a trade fair there are high standards of hygiene and safety and visitors are disciplined enough to comply with them.
“Here we have the opportunity to show ourselves and our industry and to present to a broad public how efficient and systemically relevant we are,” the groups maintain.
Frequency
NürnbergMesse’s online survey, also seeks reactions to a possible postponement until the autumn of 2021. In that event, the organiser puts forward two possibilities: either running two events in successive years (2021 and 2022), before returning to its biennial even-year frequency, or thereafter continuing with an odd-year frequency (2023, 2025, 2027, etc).
