City gardening on a large scale

City gardening is the major theme at Spoga+Gafa 2019. It will be "omipresent" at the trade fair at the start of September in Cologne and will run through all assortment ranges, promised Catja Caspary, vice president of Koelnmesse at a press conference in preparation of the event.
Other new topics, such as the demand for brands in plant ranges for example, and the furthering of themes which were previously taken up, such as batteries or smart gardening, will also be highlighted: more than ever before, the concept of the trade fair is moving from a product show towards a trend platform.
The trade sector sees this in the same way. "Fairs are much better today than they were ten years ago," decides John Herbert, chief executive officer of the European DIY Association Edra. "Every CEO in the world should send people to Spoga+Gafa."
Martina Mensing-Meckelburg, president of the association of German garden centres (VDG) also showed her acknowledgement: "The trade fair is changing." She says the fair is no longer about purchasing, it's about inspiration.
Event organisers also seem to have done good work in impressing exhibitors with their conceptional ideas and the planned special exhibition areas and themed islands: the trade fair was practically fully booked in May - almost 98 per cent of the planned surface area was occupied. Around 2 100 suppliers from 60 countries will present products, trends and services from the green industry over the 230 000 m². This makes Spoga+Gafa, from 1 to 3 September 2019, the largest garden trade fair in the world. Around 85 per cent of the exhibitors come from abroad.
So what's the major overall theme of city gardening all about? "Currently, little in the industry is moving as intensively as gardening in an urban environment," feels Catja Caspary. She says the Spoga+Gafa wants to reflect this trend in all its diversity.
For this reason, there will be a separate theme-focussed area entitled Power Place City Gardening in Hall 6. There, international exhibitors will present trend products from the fields of irrigation, planting and also multi-functional furniture, and there will be specialist presentations on several stages.
Also, a separate so-called POS Green Solution Island is dedicated to this topic. These "islands", which have been a part of the Spoga+Gafa for two years, implement POS examples for large-scale and for specialist trade. In addition to City Gardening as a core theme, this year's POS Green Solution Islands run under the…