Planning For Spoga+Gafa 2020 Is Progressing Well

The management of spoga+gafa, the largest garden trade fair in the world, have released a statement regarding the September 2020 event:

Dear exhibitors and visitors,

We are pleased to continue today on the course we set after the start of the Covid-19-pandemic, namely to keep you, our partners, informed in detail regarding our planning situation. Today, four months prior to the start of the trade fair, we are glad to give you a further insight into the general and special circumstances that will accompany spoga+gafa on its way up until the first day of the trade fair in 2020. We are continuing to work flat out on the preparations for the largest garden lifestyle trade fair in the world and in spite of the tense situation, we have so far been able to record an excellent number of applications compared to the previous year level. As such the garden industry is preparing for the times after the Corona crisis and for taking up business again.

It is our declared aim to support the international industry as far as possible in returning to the new normality and in doing so to provide it with the safest and most reliable opportunities here at our fair grounds in Cologne. In line with today's status, we can thus state that spoga+gafa will be staged in Cologne from 6 to 8 September.

Several exhibitors and visitors are understandably reacting with uncertainty to the cancellation of end customer-oriented or very highly-frequented events. For example, we received numerous enquiries after the 2020 Munich Beer Festival unfortunately had to be cancelled. As a trade fair with a B2B orientation and its expected density of visitors, spoga+gafa fundamentally distinguishes itself from sports events and folk festivals or often from other B2B and B2C trade fairs. spoga+gafa is awaiting around 40,000 fully-registered admissions in September, which will be spread over three days and the 230,000 square metres of the entire grounds of Koelnmesse. This is the clear difference to many of the cancelled events and enables us for instance to ensure the desired minimum distance. We will communicate this publicly and to the political circles.

Together with the authorities and the partners that accompany the trade fair, we will lay down criteria and measures that accompany us on our path towards the trade fair in 2020. The cited measures govern the appropriate hygiene, the distance between the players and the exchange with each other as well as encompassing strict stipulations for the processes at the entrances, in the halls and at the stands. We are relying on the professional conduct of the exhibitors and visitors, will carry out a full registration of the participants and put the flexibility and size of our grounds as well as the technical possibilities of our digital guidance systems to use.

Planning security and transparency for exhibitors and visitors

Keeping an eye on the current situation, Koelnmesse is thus preparing for a successful spoga+gafa, which is taking place in four months' time. Should this have to be cancelled due to the Corona virus, which currently doesn't appear to be the case, Koelnmesse will fully reimburse any payments made to Koelnmesse to the exhibitors and visitors. Should the trade fair be postponed, Koelnmesse will fully reimburse any payments made to Koelnmesse to the exhibitors, who are not able to participate on the new exhibition dates. The partners of the trade fair will be informed about possible tendencies at an early date directly at the start of the second half of the year.

Dear exhibitors and visitors, we can assure you that we will only hold the trade fair, if it has the chance of being successful for all parties involved. Hence if we are led to believe that although all exhibitors are participating, a relevant share of our visitors will not attend in September due to risks or bans, we will act in the interests of all partners and reassess the situation.

Should you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact our spoga+gafa team at any time.

We look forward to remaining in contact with you!

Your spoga+gafa team

Catja Caspary (Vice President Trade Fair Management) - Stefan Lohrberg (Director)

Source : spoga+gafa

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