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Big changes for ProWein in 2015
Despite celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, ProWein is holding back further expansion until next year when there will be major changes to the show.
Speaking to the drinks business Michael Degen, executive director of Messe Düsseldorf, explained that this year’s ProWein would be “more or less the same” as last year’s.
“We’re moving halls in again in 2015,” he continued, “so there will be no change in 2014. We have major changes in mind for the next fair.”
The only minor change this year will be the food and wine matching stand, “Wine’s Best Friends”, moving from Hall 6 to Hall 71.
Degen explained that while there was a substantial waiting list for the show, growth had to be controlled or exhibitors would not see the benefits.
Next year the show is going to switch from Halls 1-7 to Halls 9-17 which will give the show 20% more floor space and greater capacity for visitors.
But Degen said he wanted to make sure visitor numbers could be maintained (they grew to over 40,000 last year) or producers might complain.
“Last year we had 10% more visitors – which was very good,” said Degen, “but with the increased floor space it was difficult to tell.”
The increased space will also mean that generics will be able to enlarge their stands, something they have apparently been calling for.
Degen added that he was very aware that the larger the fair gets, the more attention needed to be paid to smaller producers who were more likely to be lost in the throng and who did not approach the show necessarily with the same attention to detail as bigger companies and so may not feel the full benefit of the fair.
“Large producers do very thorough preparation for ProWein,” said Degen. “The bigger ProWein gets the more you have to care about the small producers.
“We need to bring them to a point where they learn they have to send some emails out and say they have a story to tell.
“That’s the problem for the next few years.”
He added that ProWein did offer a comprehensive service to exhibitors after they’d signed up, which offered everything from stand design to mailouts to those listed on ProWein’s database.
The themes for this year’s show were announced back in November. The main theme will be on “Premium Wine”, while the Fizz Lounge will be looking at current bar trends.
Japanese wine in the form of native grape Koshu will also be making its first appearance at the show.