OutDoor to move to Munich in 2019; Friedrichshafen to launch rival show
08/02/2018
Members of the European Outdoor Group (EOG) held a vote on February 8 and chose to move the show to Munich rather than continue to hold it in Friedrichshafen. Moving it north to Hamburg was also an option.
New event organiser, Messe Mu¨nchen, said Munich was an ideal location for trade fairs. It said the exhibition hall in the Bavarian city (which hosts the ISPO event in the winter) has room for future growth. It added that Munich is “closely aligned with the outdoor world and its sustainability concept”.
But the chief executive of rival event organiser Messe Friedrichshafen, Klaus Wellmann, reacted to the news by saying: “We view the vote with great disappointment. After all, OutDoor was born here at Lake Constance and has been here for a quarter of a century. We have written a unique and successful chapter in the history of this industry.”
Mr Wellmann went on to say that Friedrichshafen still has “good support” from many EOG members and the backing of “numerous other outdoor industry players” and he said Messe Friedrichshafen will now work to develop a new, independent outdoor exhibition for launch in the summer of 2019.
His colleague Stefan Reisinger, who managed the OutDoor and Eurobike events in Friedrichshafen explained that several of the EOG’s 96 members and a large number of the 869 other exhibitors who attended the 2017 show “were not part of the EOG decision”. He said: “Our location and services have contributed decisively to the success of the OutDoor show. There is scepticism whether this success can simply be transplanted somewhere else. We are going to continue to offer the industry an authentic and unique home at Lake Constance.”
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