It can happen so quickly these days: As the Spielwarenmesse eG announces, the Nuremberg trade fair will not take place stationary in February. The reason is the current corona infection situation around the omicron variant. However, the event will not be canceled entirely: the digital offshoot, which was planned as part of this year's trade fair appearance, will remain in place.
"The toy industry was looking forward to its leading global event at the beginning of February," said Spielwarenmesse eG. The strong increase in the Omikron variant in the past few days and the associated increase in stand cancellations would have left the organizer no other choice: the toy fair 2022 in Nuremberg has been cancelled. The decision was made with a "heavy heart". Alternatively, exhibitors, specialist retailers and media representatives can meet on the "Toy Fair Digital" platform.
General conditions increasingly deteriorating: Omikron
"We fought hard to hold the face-to-face event and initially received strong support from the global toy markets," says Christian Ulrich, Spokesman for the Board of Directors of Spielwarenmesse eG. The large number of suppliers without an international sales network had appealed to the organizers in December to keep the trade fair, which is important for their foreign business, going.
In the last few days the general conditions have deteriorated increasingly. Due to the sharp increase in the Omikron variant, the pandemic situation has now changed significantly. In response, numerous exhibitors, worried about the health of their teams, canceled their stands. As a result, there is no longer a broad overview of the international toy market, for which the Spielwarenmesse stands as the world's leading event in the industry. To make matters worse, planning security is no longer given due to an official rejection that is possible at any time.
"We regret our decision and would like to thank everyone who has supported the implementation of a face-to-face trade fair to the end," emphasizes Christian Ulrich. A multifunctional platform is available for both exhibitors and visitors: Thanks to Spielwarenmesse Digital, they have the opportunity to network and discover the latest trends on the original date of the fair.
Trade visitors already had to forego the Nuremberg trade fair last year. After a postponement, the event was supposed to take place as a "Summer Edition" - but nothing was done about it given the corona virus situation. Instead, all hopes were placed on the year 2022 and the date at the beginning of February, but again the pandemic events thwarted the organizers.
Most recently, Spielwarenmesse eG had the surprising Takeover of Friedhelm Merz Verlag caused a sensation: the people from Nuremberg have been the owners of the International Game Days in Essen since the beginning of the year, but the world's largest consumer fair for board games is still being organized by the traditional team Dominique Metzler.
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