Starting With Frankfurt Fashion Week In July—Messe Frankfurt Is Aiming For €500 Million In Sales In 2022

Image Courtesy of Messe Frankfurt GMBH

In just a few days’ time, the premiere of Frankfurt Fashion Week is to take place in digital form under the Frankfurt Fashion Week (FFW) Studio label.

Frankfurt Fashion Week will be the new home of a forward-looking, digital-savvy fashion and lifestyle community from July 5 to 9, 2021.

Essential future topics of the fashion and textile industry are in focus.

Sustainability and digitisation will be reflected and addressed across genres in initially digital, later hybrid trade shows, conferences, showcases and events.

A new Fashion Week ecosystem is emerging.

Zeitgeist meets the future.

So, Messe Frankfurt is ready to start up again. Speaking at the Corporate Press Conference earlier today, Wolfgang Marzin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Messe Frankfurt, said: “If the pandemic situation continues to improve, we have every confidence that we will be able to get fully started again in all areas in 2022. We are aiming for sales of over €500 million.”

Presuming that the pandemic situation and the restrictions imposed by local authorities permit this, events are also to be organised again at the Group’s Frankfurt base in the second half of this year.

Since the pandemic broke out in March 2020, it has been scarcely possible to generate any sales at all in Germany.

Outside Germany, Messe Frankfurt was only able to hold events to a limited extent, for example in China.

The pandemic brought the Group’s decades of growth to an abrupt halt.

Since then, Messe Frankfurt has focused on ensuring sufficient liquidity for the Group, with a flexible but strict budget.

There are still no plans for redundancies. Wolfgang Marzin: “In spite of the strict cutbacks, the backing of our shareholders – the City of Frankfurt and the State of Hesse – means that, even in times like these, we are in a position to seize opportunities and invest counter-cyclically. With outside capital and a shareholder loan, Messe Frankfurt’s financial position has been secured for the current financial year and well into 2022.”

After the final financial report for financial year 2020 was submitted, Group sales were approximately €257 million (2019: approx. €736 million).

With a consolidated net loss of around €122 million for the year, the result was far removed from the consolidated net profits of previous years (2019: approx. €50 million).

The current financial year will also see a decline in all the Group’s financial performance indicators.

In spite of very difficult conditions, a total of 153 events were held over the past financial year – these included 46 trade fairs and exhibitions (2019: 155) with more than 33,000 (2019: 99,246) exhibiting companies and 1.2 million visitors.

Messe Frankfurt is planning events in digital, hybrid and in-person formats for the third and fourth quarters of the current financial year.

Messe Frankfurt’s great strengths – including during a pandemic – are its diversification strategy and the global presence that has been established in all world markets for over 30 years.

This means that the Group is one of the few global trade fair organisers capable of running events under their established brands at international, national and regional level in all key regions of the world.

With subsidiaries and sales partners for some 190 countries, the company’s international sales network is of crucial importance for this and a key interface to the sectors, particularly in the current crisis.  

Background Information On Messe Frankfurt

The Messe Frankfurt Group is the world’s largest trade fair, congress and event organiser with its own exhibition grounds.

The Group employs approximately 2,450 people at its headquarters in Frankfurt am Main and in 29 subsidiaries around the world.

The company generated annual sales of approximately €257 million in 2020 after having recorded sales of €736 million the previous year.

Even in difficult times caused by the coronavirus pandemic, we are globally networked with our industry sectors.

 We serve our customers’ business interests efficiently within the framework of our Fairs & Events, Locations and Services business fields.

One of the Group’s key USPs is its closely knit global sales network, which extends throughout the world.

Our comprehensive range of services – both onsite and online – ensures that customers worldwide enjoy consistently high quality and flexibility when planning, organising and running their events.