Organizers Confirm IFA 2021 Will Be Shortened to 5 Days

IFA 2021 opens Sept. 3 for five days, not the six days of previous years, based on deliberations “well before COVID-19,” emailed spokesperson Nicole von der Ropp Friday. “We are always in discussions with our industry partners and exhibitors to fine-tune and adjust the concept for IFA Berlin,” she said. “Discussions on whether to shorten IFA by one day started a year ago.” Organizers plan to keep the on-demand content from the virtual IFA 2020 “active” until next year’s show, said von der Ropp. The virtual show’s server didn’t crash Sept. 4 (see 2009070002), day two, she said. “There were two brief interruptions while updates were being performed. As far as we know, the interruption only lasted a few minutes.”