BUSINESS _Trade fair sector Wind expo goes online Just like bars, restaurants, tourism and the arts, the trade fair and event industry has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. Numer- ous congresses have been postponed or cancelled, with the rest taking place digitally – including this year’s Wind Energy Hamburg. By Jürgen Lessat At the start of the year, the anticipa- tion was palpable. As a top-level international meeting of the wind in- dustry, the 2020 edition of Wind En- ergy Hamburg was supposed to send out a clear signal in politically uncer- tain times. Renewables are vital to over- coming the global climate crisis, and onshore and offshore wind energy are an essential part of the solution – this was the message that the industry event with over 1,400 exhibitors was hoping to communicate. But then came Covid-19, robbing the organiser – Hamburg Messe und Congress – of the certainty needed for its planning. Accordingly, in May it de- cided to move the event back by three months from September to early De- cember. This was partly to gain time to develop safety measures that would allow the expo to take place safely as an in-person event in nine exhibition halls. However, global travel restric- tions meant that even this plan had to be scrapped. The 2018 edition of Wind Energy attracted 35,000 professionals from over 100 countries. Welcoming this many visitors to Hamburg during a pandemic was simply out of the ques- tion. “This year has brought immense challenges for the wind energy sector and its trade fairs, which are important sales platforms. We have all faced up to the new situation and adapted,” says Bernd Aufderheide, president and CEO of Hamburg Messe und Congress. The upshot: the expo will now take place as a purely digital event. This means the organiser, cooperation partners and ex- 20 new energy 5/2020 hibitors will have to completely rethink what an expo is. “A transformation was already underway in the trade fair in- dustry; we just had to move it along at a much faster pace,” says Aufderheide, explaining the challenge. Open round the clock The new format will go online on 9 No- vember at www.windenergyhamburg. com. From 1 to 4 December, visitors to Wind Energy Hamburg will gather in this digital space in real time. The expo will be open around the clock on all four days. For the live events, a stu- dio will be set up as a virtual stage area in one of the expo halls. Guests from around the world will be able to follow events on Wind TV, a new streaming service developed by the European in- dustry association Wind Europe. Two streams will be available: Wind TV Pre- mium will show the exclusive Wind Eu- rope conference events, while “the sec- ond stream will be open to all visitors,” explains Anja Holinsky, project director at Hamburg Messe und Congress. Panel discussions, a common feature of in-person trade fairs, will also take place digitally on Wind TV. The experts will discuss current political issues, de- velopments in approval procedures, cy- bersecurity and innovations. Although there will be no live audience this year, cameras will stream the talks and dis- cussions over the internet. For those who are unable to watch the events live, the recordings will be available online. “This means that vis- itors from Asia will get the live pro- gramme from Hamburg in the morning and can watch reruns of the previous day, while our US viewers can follow the current day’s programme with a de- lay,” explains Holinsky. On the exhibitor side, rotor manu- facturers, suppliers and developers will also appear in a purely digital format. The event organisers have developed a virtual platform that will allow the ex- hibitors to be present across different types of media. The organisers are promising a state- of-the-art marketplace with almost un- limited scope for information and com- munication. “Companies can add all their metadata to their exhibitor pro- files and enter extensive details of their core skills, products and services,” says Holinsky. Visitors will be able to digi- tally experience products through mul- timedia exhibits that include everything from interactive images to promotional videos. Chat functions and demonstra- tion sessions will also be possible. A search function will allow users to filter everything on offer at the expo. Exhibitors, product information, con- tacts and programme sessions will be clearly listed. “The new expo experi- ence, which was originally spread across nine halls, is now available through a single screen,” says Holinsky. At the time of going to print, organisers were unable to provide a firm estimate of how many companies plan to take up the offer to present themselves digitally. However, the industry is fundamen- tally supportive of the new expo con- cept as a stopgap solution. As can be expected, many market players have mixed feelings: “We think it’s a real