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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.

If all five senses are appealed to in brand communication, then it significantly intensifies the emotional links between the brand and the consumer. Therefore it is no wonder that multisensory aspects play a particularly important role in trade fair presentations. The atmosphere of a trade fair hall can easily lead to a sensory overload. Exhibitors are therefore not only engaged in a product competition, but also in a perceptual competition. In light of this, authors of this year's trade fair design yearbook have once again brought together the best 60 trade fair stands of the past year and show a cross section of trade fair design that appeals to all the senses.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 transmedia 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. Text in English and German.

Change and transformation are currently characteristic not only of our society and our socio-cultural structures, but also our economic structures and therefore also the exhibition industry: traditional approaches to brand communication no longer appear to take full effect, although the core of the longstanding trade fair business perhaps holds the key to the future of the traditional platform: in real encounters and individual exchanges.In accordance with this, over the forthcoming years it will increasingly be about shaping this discussion, creating spaces for it, enabling especially personal contacts amidst a communication guided by bots, thereby shaping change. Of course, this edition of the Trade Fair Design Yearbook is not oblivious to this either: from October 2018, the publication will be issued in a new, even higher quality design, extending increasingly into digital, as well as real space.Text in English and German.