BAU 2019 breaks records with highest number of overseas visitors

BAU 2019 broke its own records last week, with exhibitor numbers and overseas visitors peaking for the architecture, materials and systems trade fair.

Messe Munchen saw 2,250 exhibitors this year at BAU, while 250,000 visitors came through the show doors, 85,000 of which were from overseas (80,500 in 2017), from 150 countries.

Meanwhile, 'digitalBAU' - a new trade show for digital solutions in the building market - is set to launch and run every two years from 2020, in Cologne.

International visitors: Russia and China visitors rise

Leading the table of visitors from outside Germany were again the neighbouring countries of Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Big rises in the number of visitors from the Russian Federation (over 4,000 visitors this year) and China (over 3,500) put these countries in fourth and fifth place respectively, their highest ranking so far.

Construction is going digital

At BAU, the organisers presented digitalBAU, the new trade fair set up with the German Association of Building Software (Bundesverband Bausoftware—BVBS). BVBS Managing Director Michael Fritz is confident the new event will be a success: “We see high demand among all suppliers of digital applications to establish a further trade fair alongside the already very successful BAU. Planners, building firms and the skilled trades must inform themselves about the upcoming challenges and with digitalBAU we are offering an excellent opportunity for them to do so.”

digitalBAU takes place for the first time from February 11 to 13, 2020 in Cologne.

There'll be more on BAU in the next print edition of Torque Magazine.