Koelnmesse Opens New Fairground

COLOGNE, Germany (January 17) – Yesterday the Koelnmesse opened its four new Northern Halls with a grand party visited by hunderds of officials from various sectors, including the bike business. Naming only the four new halls is not doing justice to the drastic changes at the Koelnmesse. In fact a completely new fairground has been developed. With the Rhineside Halls sold to RTL television, the Cologne exhibition centre now runs along a north-south axis. The current Eastern Halls have become the Southern Halls that are connected with the new Northern Halls through a new, centrally located boulevard. In addition to around 75,000 square metre of outdoor space, the four new Northern Halls offer approximately 80,000 square metre of gross exhibition space. With the new Halls the new Koelnmesse is the third-largest trade-fair venue in the world. The building of the new Halls and the significant improvements that were made at the Southern Halls has cost around € 260 million. The building was completed in a record breaking 16 months. Jochen Witt, President and Chief Executive Officer of Koelnmesse, said at the grand opening party that fierce competition among the key trade-fair locations, forced Koelnmesse to build the new halls and to improve the existing area. With most of the work done (the trade-fair boulevard including a ‘Piazza’ has to be completed as well as the ‘Köln Messe/Deutz’ InterCity Express station) Koelnmesse will again boost its profile with a first-class exhibition center. The IFMA (14 – 17 September) and Intermot (11 – 15 October) will be held in the new Northern Halls. (JO)