uAnd now also China. Messe Frankfurt is already one of the big losers of the pandemic, for months the huge exhibition center in Frankfurt lay idle, the company, which is 60 percent owned by the city of Frankfurt and 40 percent by the state of Hesse, had to cancel events worldwide every week. The fair is planning a big comeback this year. But will that really happen? “No one knows exactly how things will continue,” says the CEO, Wolfgang Marzin. This means that no one can predict whether the next wave of corona will bring restrictions that would also put a further strain on the trade fair.

The concern that China is also becoming less secure as a source of revenue is therefore all the greater. The zero-Covid policy there makes it almost impossible to plan trade fairs at the moment. “Because from one day to the next, entire cities can be closed and trade fairs can be banned,” says Marzin. Business in China is extremely important for the company: the trade fair generates 35 percent of its sales there. In addition, the company lacks exhibitors from the country at events outside of China because travelers often have to go into quarantine after returning.

High double-digit million loss expected for 2022

The situation at Messe Frankfurt is therefore still serious, even if those responsible made every effort to spread optimism on Tuesday. Last year, the trade fair generated sales of just 154 million euros. This is a new low after the 257 million euros in the first Corona year 2020 and especially in view of 736 million in the last financial year before the outbreak of the pandemic. The bottom line at the trade fair is a minus of 139 million euros, after a minus of 122 in the previous year and a plus of 257 million euros in 2019.

The trade fair company justifies the fact that sales have fallen again compared to 2020 with the fact that normality prevailed until the first restrictions in March, but 2021 will go down in history as a “non-fair year”, as Marzin said.

After all: For the current financial year, the company expects sales of 400 million euros again, and the return to the pre-Corona level is aimed at for 2025. “We want to fight our way out,” said Marzin. The original plan to post proceeds of 541 million euros, however, he had to collect again because of the situation in China, the actually targeted deficit of 40 million euros will, that is already certain, be higher, but should remain in double digits .

Fair hopes for the fall

An example from China shows how difficult it is to plan all of this. “We have huge trade fairs there, where we lose 30 to 40 million euros in sales if we cancel, which we cannot compensate for,” says Marzin.

It is all the more important to look at the autumn of the year, when Marzin sees an “unprecedented accumulation of events”. There is also an example of this, this time from Frankfurt: 70 concerts will take place in the Festhalle by the end of the year, after many had to be postponed again and again during the pandemic. Up to the end of the year, the trade fair has important own and guest events coming up, also in Frankfurt: The important Automechanika supplier show is taking place in September and the book fair in October. No wonder that managing directors pointed out that exhibition grounds are “safe venues” for airborne viral diseases in view of the increasing incidence figures.

Marzin left open whether the International Motor Show, which was last held in Frankfurt in 2019 and has now found a new home in Munich, will come back to Hesse in the future. The new Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) had announced that he wanted to bring the IAA back to its old location. “Should Frankfurt play a role again, we will of course hold talks,” said the CEO, but this topic is currently not current, the decision lies neither with the head of government nor with the trade fair, but with the VDA association.

The company’s losses are offset by the shareholders, the city of Frankfurt and the state of Hesse. The company is currently equipped with sufficient liquidity and, also thanks to a financial injection from the shareholders of 240 million euros, is fully financed until the end of 2023 – with Marzin emphasizing that the trade fair has reliably distributed profits in the past decades. “We are able to act and hope to get there again.”

The trade fair is also prepared to take unusual measures for this: A plot of land in the Europaviertel was sold in order to gain financial flexibility, as Managing Director Uwe Behm announced. “We sell silverware in an emergency,” says Behm, who does not rule out other similar measures.