A VERY DIFFERENT AUTOMECHANIKA IN 2021 By Paul Marinelli
One and a half years after its last scheduled date was cancelled, the world’s largest automotive aftermarket trade fair, Automechanika Frankfurt, finally returned in 2021, albeit in a much smaller physical manner than over the past 25 biennial events. Normally attracting more than 5,000 global exhibitors, the 2021 event held from September 14 to 16 saw a total of 388 companies take part, with only 53% of the exhibitors taking part personally at the Frankfurt showgrounds. The remainder took part online. Normally this big daddy of global automotive aftermarket exhibition events would use more than 13 multi-level exhibition halls along with many large outdoor areas, welcoming more than 160,000 visitors from all over the world across five days. Known as Automechanika Digital Plus for 2021, the pandemic-affected event saw Automechanika merged with Hypermotion, the world-leading technology, urban logistics and mobility concepts, intelligent supply chains and alternative drive technologies expo. This year’s event saw 10,000 visitors take part from 70 countries, both in person and online. More than two-thirds of all registered visitors made use of the many new Automechanika digital features including live streams, intelligent matchmaking events between suppliers and distributors, and one-on-one video calls. This new way of running trade shows saw a total of 25,000 online interactions take place over the shortened three-day event, with 21,000 views of exhibitor streams and 1,600 video calls made. While representing a mere fraction of the business-generating activities that these industry events are world famous for, it did herald the return and the resilience of the global automotive aftermarket business despite the major disruptions placed in front of it by the pandemic.
1 2 CAPRICORN IGNITION NOVEMBER 2021
