The postponement to early summer 2022 was made in close consultation with the Hannover Messe Exhibitors' Advisory Board and the partner associations VDMA (German Engineering Federation) and ZVEI (German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association).

"Due to the continuing high incidence in Germany and many neighboring countries, we have decided together with our exhibitors to postpone the Hannover Messe to early summer this year. Last year, we discovered that the summer months are best suited for major events during the pandemic. Since we cannot currently assume that the corona situation will have eased sufficiently by April, we are offering our customers the greatest possible planning security with the early postponement to present their innovations at the world's most important industrial trade fair," says Dr. Jochen Köckler, Chairman of the Board of Management of Deutsche Messe AG.

The Hannover Messe will be the world's first major industrial trade fair in June and aims to "provide clear impetus for innovative, efficient production and climate protection" with a focus on digitalization and sustainability. Due to the high capacity utilization of the exhibition grounds in Hanover with numerous events in early summer, the world's leading trade fair for industry has to be shortened to four days this year. In 2023, the Hannover Messe will take place again as usual over five days in April.

"It is right to postpone the Hannover Messe to a later date. This can further increase the vaccination rate, which is in the interests of exhibitors and visitors to the trade fair. In addition, a later event date in the year means a higher probability of attracting more national and international visitors - which benefits everyone involved. The mechanical and plant engineering industry will present itself in Hanover as a technological enabler for climate change and highlight its role as a supplier and user of cutting-edge technology for networked and intelligent production," says VDMA Managing Director Thilo Brodtmann.

"As the world's most important industrial trade fair, Hannover Messe is the showcase to the world for our companies. The postponement is therefore the right decision under the given circumstances. We are convinced that we will be able to reach a larger audience in the summer for the topics surrounding Industry 4.0 and its contributions to sustainability. With our innovations in the areas of digitalization, electrification, energy efficiency and automation, the electrical and digital industry is shaping the industrial transformation towards a climate-neutral circular economy. We want to demonstrate what this path can look like to as wide an audience as possible. After all, we can only master this challenge by working together. The Hannover Messe offers the perfect setting for this," says Wolfgang Weber, Chairman of the ZVEI Management Board.

Trade fairs in summer (selection)
30.05.-03.06. IFAT, Munich
30.05.-02.06. Hannover Messe, Hanover
31.05.-02.06. LogiMAT, Stuttgart

21-24.06. METAV, Düsseldorf
21-24.06. Automatica, Munich
21-23.06. Embedded World, Nuremberg
29-30.06. All About Automation, Hamburg

Flash survey among users of materialfluss.de

You can find the results here: The majority is skeptical about the new date.

Inquired ...

with Onuora Ogbukagu, company spokesman for Deutsche Messe AG

materialfluss: How many visitors and exhibitors do you expect in the summer - compared to the originally planned HMI in April?

Onuora Ogbukagu: We are experiencing a great response from leading companies from the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and software and IT sectors, so we will be organizing a strong event in terms of content with certainly more than 3,000 exhibitors. We had also targeted this figure for the event in April.

materialfluss: Were there any dissenting voices among the exhibitors? How do you intend to make the new date attractive to the "traditionalists"?

Onuora Ogbukagu: Our exhibitors and we would very much have liked to hold HANNOVER MESSE in April, which is the traditional date of the world's largest industrial trade fair, but unfortunately it is not possible in these times, so there was a unanimous vote in favor of the new date.

materialfluss: HMI takes place almost parallel to IFAT and LogiMAT - is that a challenge to the trade fair organizers from Munich?

Onuora Ogbukagu: This year, we will experience a strong concentration of trade fairs in the summer, which is unavoidable. Other trade fair dates therefore had no influence on the decision to hold the Hannover Messe at the beginning of June.

materialfluss: Has Deutsche Messe, once the organizer of the proud CeMAT, now written off intralogistics altogether?

Onuora Ogbukagu: We firmly believe that logistics is an integral part of production. This means that the Hannover Messe is and remains interesting for all intralogistics manufacturers.