The security trade fair goes to Basel

Seven months after the last security trade event in Zurich, it is clear: The platform will no longer exist in this form - but a promising new edition. With the "Security 2019" changes the place and the date: For the first time, the national meeting point will take place in Basel, and in parallel with Ineltec. This means that the event will now be held in September instead of November as before. The organizers, Messe Schweiz (Basel) AG and Exhibit & More AG, emphasize that the new platform for analog and digital security will appear with its own identity and under the new brand "sicherheit. As before, a specialist security congress will be offered, but this is to be expanded to include digital topics such as cybersecurity.

Reasons for the new concept

In 2013, more than 220 exhibitors took part in the safety trade fair. Two years later, the number dropped below the 200 mark and the 20th "Fire, Safety and Security" trade fair still featured 194 exhibitors. Finally, in 2017, another decline had to be accepted, and a significant one at that: 143 companies still presented their security technologies and services. In addition, important major exhibitors such as Dormakaba stayed away, which meant that the exhibition space, which is important for the organizers, also shrank and shrank.

A similar picture emerged for the number of visitors: in 2013, the organizer Exhibit & More reported more than 10,000 trade visitors. In 2015, the number fell below this psychologically not unimportant mark; a good 9600 trade visitors still made the pilgrimage to Zurich. The big slump came last November: just 6500 interested visitors showed up in Zurich-Oerlikon - a drop of a good 30 percent compared to 2015.

It was clear to all players that things could no longer go on like this. Exhibition director Heinz Salzgeber said immediately after the 2017 event in an interview in "SicherheitsForum": "The quality of the platform is basically described as very good. Nevertheless, I must add a 'but>, because we have slowly reached a critical size. On the one hand, this is communicated to us by the exhibitors, and on the other hand, we as organizers can hardly offer this anymore to the visitors who want a complete range of products. That's why action is urgently needed." Now those responsible have acted in collaboration with the industry and come up with a new concept.

What synergy potential?

Ineltec is divided into four sectors: Energy, Lighting, Network and Building Automation. In the latter sector, the topic of building security is also integrated. According to surveys, 25 percent or 4500 visitors of Ineltec were explicitly interested in the topic of security. 20 percent or 3400 visitors of the Ineltec have even the work emphasis security, as the fair Switzerland lets know. For the exhibitors of the safety platform, this alone would result in a potential of 3600 new visitors in the target group of planners/technicians/consultants, craftsmen/installers and engineers.

According to information, Ineltec was able to increase exhibitor numbers in 2015 by ten percent compared to 2013. In 2017, the organizer also reported positive figures with 282 exhibitors (2015: 260). Visitor numbers were slightly down: 16,900 came in 2017, compared with around 17,000 interested visitors in 2015.

Ineltec: Share of planners and engineers on the rise

Feedback from exhibitors and initial results of the independent visitor survey showed that the event was able to successfully implement its consistent further development into a trade fair for intelligent building technology, as the organizer wrote after the trade fair closed in September 2017. "In addition, the fact that we were able to increase the proportion of planners and engineers to around 40 percent (2015: 27 percent) is confirmation that we are on the right track with the orientation of Ineltec," said exhibition director Armin Kirchhofer at the time.

The new trade fair duo will present itself for the first time in Basel from September 10 to 13, 2019.