Until spring 2020 the trade fair sector was still boasting: "You can't e-mail a handshake!" Then Covid-19 came along and everything was turned upside down: exhibitions were postponed, cancelled or relocated into digital space. It also brought forth new concepts with which we had not reckoned a couple of years ago: virtual twins, AR or VR walk-through stands, online exhibitions with new meeting formats, or quite different ideas that are currently turning the sector upside down, providing new impetuses and making the trade fair a place as we have never known it before. The new trade fair yearbook presents not only the most exciting exhibition settings of the previous year but also entices us into virtual space.

"We need new concepts for trade fairs as places of chance encounters. This might also be showrooms and brand worlds in places where people and ideas converge. What we need are open forums for critical and competent dialogue." You will find lots of demands like this one expressed by Ranger Design in this special edition: The industry has given us an outlook of the near future and shows what they have achieved in the last few months, where they had to find alternatives, what new concepts evolved and how the trade fair format has changed in recent times. Text in English and German.

Current brand communication is increasingly moving towards real-digital narratives. Storytelling plays a major role in this, as well as the type of communication. Particularly at trade fairs, personal discussion is still the key aspect of every presentation. With this edition of the Trade Fair Design Annual, the authors present a series of successful examples of trans-media storytelling, attaching particular importance to the accomplished use of means of communication. What is decisive, however, is the exceptional design of the overall presentation, which can add communicative and therefore informative value for the exhibitor, as well as provide an emotional experience for the visitors.

So-called Instagramability has long become part of our communication policy - has the design of trade fair stands also changed as a consequence? Is the presentation's focus no longer the product but rather the potential customer and their interaction? How important are live experiences in order to draw the full attention of visitors? What effect does this have on the communication strategy and on the spatial design? These are questions pursued by the new Trade Fair Design Annual with 60 exceptional examples. Text in English and German. Also available: Trade Fair Design Annual 2018/19 ISBN 9783899862829

In this edition of the "Trade fair Design annual, the authors not only show the best trade fair stands of the past year with the usual wealth of images, they also dedicate themselves to the displays at the last Expo.While in Milan - the largest annual trade fair in the world - 21 million visitors immersed themselves deeply into the universe of the 145 exhibiting nations and were able to get to know their cultural identity, economic strengths, new projects and innovations, the exhibitors from around the world also delivered a statement about their distinctive identity and promising innovative strength with the individual and accomplished design of their trade fair stands. It is no secret that trade fairs can sometimes be like funfairs ...