The ‘festival of business technology’ event CEBIT Australia will still be held as planned in October next year, despite the demise of the IT fair in Germany.
The largest global CEBIT event has been held in Hannover, Germany since 1986, but yesterday organiser Deutsche Messe indefinitely cancelled the event there “due to reduced space bookings”.
“Technological developments within the digital economy have reduced demand for horizontal trade shows such as CEBIT in recent years,” Deutsche Messe CEO Dr. Jochen Köckler said in a statement.
“CEBIT Digitalisation's innovative impact is particularly evident in the industrial application industries. As such, many of CEBIT's traditional core exhibitors have turned to events targeting these industries to generate new business,” he added.
Deutsche Messe said the company “will continue to use the CEBIT brand at events abroad”.
It is understood exhibitor and visitor numbers have been in terminal decline since 2000.
CEBIT Australia has been held in Sydney since 2001, one of six international satellite events. Organisers of the Australian version confirmed to Computerworld the event will go ahead as planned.
“The closing of the event in Hannover has no effect on that,” said event director Daniel Mortimer.
Next year’s event will be held in October, moved from its usual date in May, and will continue to be supported by the NSW government.
This year the event is reported to have attracted 15,000 attendees, 80 per cent of which were ‘technology decision makers or influencers’.