Messe Karlsruhe: your strong partner
We are organizers and hosts in a strong region
Events are our passion. Not only because we offer the perfect setting for trade fairs, conventions and cultural events, but also because we contribute our extensive know-how, flexible service and strong personal dedication to every event, whether as its organizer or its host.
Our region’s Mediterranean climate and high concentration of researchers encounter our passion and enthusiasm for events at Messe Karlsruhe.
Welcome to Karlsruhe!
We are hosts
Advise, accompany, implement: we make your event truly special. We offer you services that are and remain personal from start to finish. Regardless of whether you are looking for halls for a trade fair, rooms for a convention or a venue for an event, we will be pleased to advise you individually. Because we know that every event has its own unique character.
From our home base here in Karlsruhe, we cultivate diverse partnerships and a comprehensive network from which you can benefit. We want you to feel at home with us. And we hope you’ll choose to return.
We are organizers
It has been our task and our pleasure to inspire generations of clients for almost seventy years. Year after year, we invite our guests to be surprised, fascinated, educated and moved by our trade fairs and events. We have something for everyone: art KARLSRUHE is a yearly meeting for art lovers from all over Germany, RendezVino offers numerous culinary delights for gourmets from the region, LEARNTEC is a “must” for people with an affinity for digital learning, and NUFAM annually rolls out the latest innovations for entrepreneurs in the commercial vehicles industry.
We bring new ideas and innovations to the region – and we bring the region to the world. As an organizer, we cultivate an extensive network which includes numerous companies and institutions in the Karlsruhe Technology Region. Visit us and let us inspire you.
We are in Karlsruhe
The sun shines on our fan-shaped city almost 140 days a year. The sunny weather doesn’t only tempt connoisseurs and pleasure seekers to settle here: Karlsruhe is also the city with Europe’s highest density of researchers. In addition to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and three Fraunhofer Institutes, the Max Rubner Institute (one of the four federal research institutes) is likewise based in Karlsruhe. And over 3,600 IT and technology companies make our region Europe’s third-largest IT cluster.
With the Centre for Art and Media (ZKM), we have a unique cultural institution that was recently listed among the world’s five best museums.
The spacious Schlosspark, the Stadtgarten and many other green areas invite nature lovers to relax and enjoy life in Baden, where gourmets can choose among ten starred restaurants in the region.
The company Messe Karlsruhe in figures
Over 300 events annually attract up to 800,000 visitors to our two locations in the city centre and on our Karlsruhe Trade Fair Centre. We offer local people and our guests a varied programme – from regional to international and from creative to innovative.
Facts und figures
- More than 40 trade fairs each year with almost 8,000 exhibitors
- 82,000 square meters of hall space in 9 halls distributed over two locations
- Total sales valued at 38.7 million euros in 2019
- 150 employees
- Over 6,000 reports or mentions in the media
- 1 million visits to the websites, of which almost 250,000 visits were from abroad
- Over 101,507 followers on the social media channels (facebook, instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter)
Revenue development: 2009 - 2020
The planning for 2021 envisaged total revenues of € 32.9 million. This was based on the assumption of year-round trade fair and event operations. A total of € 19.5 million was generated, which is a significant improvement on the previous year (+ € 2.1 million), which was also affected by the pandemic.
With the achievement of around 60 % of the total revenue originally budgeted for the year 2021, Messe Karlsruhe performed significantly better than the slump in the industry average of 70 %.
Operational development
Contribution margin II is an indicator of the operational development of Messe Karlsruhe. The result here was € 3.1 million and thus € 2.6 million below the original planning. However, it was a significant improvement on the result from the previous year. This shows that the operative business has made a significant contribution to the annual result even under pandemic conditions.
Operating result
As a result of the ongoing ban on trade fairs until September and the pandemic situation that came to a head again towards winter, trade fairs were allowed to take place on just 70 days in 2021, which is clearly reflected in the absolute figures. In the congress area, the use of the generous space available for events to maintain public life was even greater than in the previous year, with the application of tried and tested hygiene concepts. The decline in the number of cultural events resulted from very strict visitor restrictions and the associated cancellations by guest organisers due to economic unprofitability. In the area of other events, mainly the operation of vaccination centres leads to an increase compared to the previous year.
