A companion through the greenery

Koelnmesse has deemed the outcome of Spoga+Gafa 2019, which came to a close on Tuesday 3 September, "a very positive result". The organisers reported an increase in visitors on all three days compared with the show days last year. Just over 40 000 trade visitors in all from 124 countries came to the world-leading garden and leisure show in Cologne. Foreign visitors accounted for 65 per cent of the total. The number of exhibitors also increased slightly, with 2 281 companies (2018: 2 152) from 67 countries presenting their goods and services on an exhibition area of 230 000 m². Of these, 86 per cent came from abroad.
However Stefan Lohrberg, responsible for the Spoga+Gafa as director of the Koelnmesse, made it clear he doesn't only measure the success of the event in its figures. "We are very pleased about the great brands which were there, about the great brands which have returned, we are very pleased about the new countries which visited us," he says. However he is most pleased about the fact that the idea of putting the whole event under one feature topic was a success, even though it had been put forward at somewhat short notice.
This was intended, Lohrberg says, "as a way of showing the trade fair's new way of seeing itself, namely that the fair today has to be more of a companion, has to position topics and communicate, and it seems to have been well received".
So the idea is being continued and this time they found the specific feature topic much earlier: after "City Gardening - Gardening with no garden" the focus next year will be "Sustainable Gardens".
The fact that Spoga+Gafa 2019 was an overall success is confirmed by many exhibitors - even if, of course, individual estimations always come out very differently. Many of them spoke of a strong presence of DIY store and garden retailers right from the start of the fair.
John Herbert, general secretary of the European DIY Retail Association (EDRA), confirmed this impression from the retail perspective: "We received extremely positive feedback from our more than 200 top international buyers. In particular, the presence of strong brands like Fiskars but also the ambience of Spoga+Gafa as a whole were viewed favourably. The show has become even more attractive this year."
A major factor contributing to this was surely that fact that the event organisers once again put more effort into the design of the supporting programme. For example the number of POS Islands, in which products are presented in…