IFA 2022 to Have No Vaccine Mandate, Will Bar Russia, Belarus Exhibitors

IFA 2022 is “going ahead” as scheduled Sept. 2-6 at the Messe Berlin fairgrounds as a “full-size” show for the first time since 2019, and it will be a “hands-on, on-location event without compromise,” IFA Executive Director Jens Heithecker told a digital news briefing Wednesday. IFA 2022 won’t have a COVID-19 vaccination mandate, said Heithecker in a follow-up Q&A.

Messe Berlin “at the moment” has no COVID-19 restrictions in force for trade visitors, said Heithecker in the Q&A. The fairgrounds last week hosted its first international show since the start of the pandemic, attracting 40,000 visitors, and “it worked out well,” he said. Heithecker and fellow IFA 2022 organizers “have no clue, to be honest, what will happen in September,” he said.

Overseas trade show visitors are permitted to enter Germany regardless of their countries of origin, said Heithecker. “The problem that every show on the global stage is facing” is that when Chinese visitors return home, they’re required to quarantine for at least three weeks, he said. IFA management hopes Beijing will change its “zero-COVID policy,” but “at the moment, that’s the only COVID restriction we see,” he said.

The German trade show industry did some studies on the health and safety of its exhibit halls, “and the really good news is that our exhibitors, our attendees in the halls, are safer than in nightclubs, safer than in a supermarket,” said Heithecker. “We’re quite optimistic with our industry, with our exhibitors, that IFA 2022 will happen at the same full size, with the same relaxed atmosphere, we had before the pandemic,” he said.

IFA 2022 will prohibit companies based in Russia or Belarus from exhibiting at the show due to Russia's "attack" on Ukraine, “as long as the situation is as it is,” said Heithecker. “We follow the law, we follow the sanctions, and we feel for the people of Ukraine, from the bottom of our hearts,” he said. He said he didn't have a handle on the spot about how many companies from Russia or Belarus exhibited at IFA 2019, but thinks the number was small.

The show will have a virtual component for people unable or unwilling to travel to Berlin, but won’t attempt to “replicate” the physical show in a “virtual world,” said Heithecker. For digital IFA 2022 visitors, “we will bring the most important parts” of the show, including global brand news conferences and major keynotes, he said.

Heithecker hedged when we asked him to define what he meant when he said IFA 2022 will be a full-scale show. He declined to predict exhibitor or visitor counts, and wouldn’t commit to using all available space in the massive Messe Berlin fairgrounds. “We have 43 halls in Messe Berlin,” he said. “If you ask if we will use every one of these halls, we will see.” The whole exhibition site will be “open for the show,” he said. “We will see how many halls will be filled.”

Like so many parts of the world, “we had to hit pause and effectively take a two-year break,” said Heithecker in the earlier media briefing. Organizers ran a “small-scale” in-person IFA 2020, dubbing it "Special Edition," with mostly virtual audiences (see 2008310024), he said. Last year, as new COVID-19 variants “kept emerging, we had to cancel our event outright,” he said, doing so more than three months out (see 2105190023). “The risk of a sudden new lockdown was simply too big.” For IFA 2022, “it’s time to reconnect,” and meet people “face to face, not as a flat image on a screen,” he said.