Stuttgart Trade Fair
Encyclopedia
Trade fair
A trade fair is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products, service, study activities of rivals and examine recent market trends and opportunities...
next to Stuttgart Airport
Stuttgart Airport
Stuttgart Airport is an international airport located approximately south of Stuttgart, Germany....
, 7 miles south of Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. It is the ninth biggest trade fair in Germany.
The new exhibition grounds, which were completed in 2007, are right next to the A8
Bundesautobahn 8
is an autobahn in southern Germany that runs 497 km from the Luxembourg A13 motorway at Schengen via Neunkirchen, Pirmasens, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Ulm, Augsburg and Munich to the Austrian West Autobahn near Salzburg....
autobahn (motorway). The centre is accessible from Stuttgart Flughafen/Messe station
Stuttgart Flughafen/Messe station
Stuttgart Flughafen/Messe station is a station on the network of the Stuttgart S-Bahn. Despite its name the station is not in the city of Stuttgart, rather it is in Leinfelden-Echterdingen.-History :...
on the local suburban railway
Stuttgart S-Bahn
The Stuttgart S-Bahn is a suburban railway system serving the Stuttgart Region, an agglomeration of around 2.6 million people, consisting of the city of Stuttgart and the adjacent districts of Esslingen, Böblingen, Ludwigsburg and Rems-Murr. It consists of seven lines numbered S1 through S6 and...
network. Buses also travel to the trade fair from nearby Esslingen
Esslingen am Neckar
Esslingen am Neckar is a city in the Stuttgart Region of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany, capital of the District of Esslingen as well as the largest city in the district....
, Göppingen
Göppingen
Göppingen is a town in southern Germany, part of the Stuttgart Region of Baden-Württemberg. It is the capital of the district Göppingen. It is situated at the bottom of the Hohenstaufen mountain, in the valley of the river Fils....
, Reutlingen
Reutlingen
Reutlingen is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous district of Reutlingen. As of April 2008, it has a population of 109,828....
and Tübingen
Tübingen
Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...
. As part of the Stuttgart 21 Project
Stuttgart 21
Stuttgart 21 is an urban development and under construction transport project in Stuttgart as part of the Stuttgart–Augsburg new and upgraded railway project in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria in Germany. It consists of the replacement of the tracks and platforms of Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof, the city's...
, there are plans to link the trade fair and airport to the proposed Stuttgart–Wendlingen high-speed railway between Stuttgart and Ulm
Ulm Hauptbahnhof
is the Hauptbahnhof or central railway station for the city of Ulm, which lies on the Danube, on the border of the German states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. It is on ICE line from Stuttgart to Munich and the Paris –Budapest Magistrale for Europe line that is supported by the European Union...
by 2019.
Exhibition halls
Stuttgart exhibition centre encompasses seven standard halls measuring 10,500m² and a high hall with a net display area of 26,800m² which is also designed to cater for sports events and concerts. The exhibition centre also includes a communication and events centre, the Internationale Congresscenter or ICS, which includes a congress hall (4900m²), a congress room (2600m²) and conferencing facilities encompassing 25 meeting rooms.Car park
Robert Bosch GmbH
Robert Bosch GmbH is a multinational engineering and electronics company headquartered in Gerlingen, near Stuttgart, Germany. It is the world's largest supplier of automotive components...
which paid around 20 million euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
s for exclusive advertising space. The logo is the second largest illuminated sign in the world and the biggest logo in the world after the unlit Hollywood Sign
Hollywood Sign
The Hollywood Sign is a landmark and American cultural icon in the Hollywood Hills area of Mount Lee, Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles, California. The sign spells out the name of the area in and white letters. It was created as an advertisement in 1923, but garnered increasing recognition...
.
Brief history
Before completion of the new site next to Stuttgart Airport, Stuttgart Messe was based for more than 50 years in the Killesberg suburb of StuttgartStuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
. As nearby housing estates encroached on trade fair parking and roads, the old fair was closed down to make way for social housing for old aged pensioners and apartments.
Criticism
Immediately after opening, Stuttgart Messe was plagued by a number of unexpected teething problems, ranging from faulty barcodeBarcode
A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows data about the object to which it attaches. Originally barcodes represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1 dimensional . Later they evolved into rectangles,...
readers at the entrances to poor signage.
Construction of the new site, which was originally approved in 1993, was subject to frequent delay. First of all, local farmers refused to sell their land after successful lobbying by nearby residents. After compulsory repossession of land was approved by the Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
State Government, demonstrations came to a peak resulting in a string of court cases between landowners and the company commissioned to build the new trade fair. Eventually agreement was reached between the local government and landowners, amid cries from local residents that the farmers had "sold out" to the politicians and had only gone along with lobbyists in the first place to maximise returns on the sale of land.