Due to global Covid-19 infection figures and the associated travel restrictions, Mesago Messe Frankfurt (Stuttgart / Germany; www.mesago.de) said it has decided to make “Formnext” 2020 a purely virtual event called “Formnext Connect”. For the time being, this ends the ongoing success of the trade fair for additive manufacturing. After its premiere in 2015, the event achieved the status of the world’s leading trade show in record time. In 2019, some 850 exhibitors and around 34,000 visitors met in Frankfurt (see Plasteurope.com of 09.12.2019).

Formnext 2020 had previously been planned as a hybrid trade fair with participation at the exhibition grounds plus a digital supplement. Now the event, which starts on 10 November 2020, will be purely online with exhibitor presentations in virtual showrooms containing products, information, videos and a chat function as well as intelligent matchmaking supported by artificial intelligence, live streams and on-demand broadcasts of the supporting programmes.

A good 200 km northwest of Frankfurt, Messe Düsseldorf (www.messe-duesseldorf.de) said it is still optimistic that the exhibition duo “Medica/Compamed” will be held as planned from 16 to 19 November 2020. The medical technology event would thus be more or less the only remaining in-person industrial fair in the corona-plagued year 2020. “We are currently in the approval phase”, a Messe Düsseldorf spokesperson told Plasteurope.com. The fair organiser said it will announce details on how the event will proceed in September. Normally the show hosts more than 5,000 exhibitors and about 130,000 visitors from all over the world.

The Düsseldorf company will be able to gain experience about using a corona-safe hygiene and safety concept during the “Caravan Salon”, starting this week. The “glasstec virtual” and the “drupa preview” fairs are set to follow at the end of October as hybrid trade fairs.