After staging the biggest ISPO Winter show in Munich and a successfully ISPO China in Beijing, Messe München has announced that it is suspending the fading ISPO Summer until further notice. Responding to the increasing segmentation of the market, it is holding instead the first Running Order Show, concurrently with Sports Source Europe as a European counterpart to its new Sports Source Asia show.
Curiously, the new Running Order Show will feature the running gear of big brands like Adidas, Nike and Puma, which have been turning their back on ISPO, precipitating the gradual pull-out of many other brands from the Summer show. Organized in collaboration with the Lex group, which coordinates the purchases of some 80 German retailers specializing in running, it will replace its buying days and be open to any other retailers, targeting mainly those that operating within a 50-km. radius of Munich.
Some 80 firms, including suppliers of nutritional foods and exercise walking, Nordic walking and trail running shoes, apparel and equipment, have agreed to participate in the new show, which will be held together with Sports Source Europe in the M,O,C, center on the northern edge of Munich. Sports Source Europe will not have many manufacturers from Turkey, Portugal or other countries in or around Europe. It will continue to feature many Asian producers who are seeking contract work in Europe.
ISPO has been working already on various concept for customized trade shows that relate to a specific market niche. It made a strong bid to hold the European OutDoor show, but the majority of the members of the European Outdoor Group preferred to stick to Friedrichshafen, even though Messe München had agreed to hold it at different dates from the ISPO Summer show. It also negotiated the concept of a football show inside the ISPO Summer fair together with the organizers of Planet Fùtbol, a successful consumer-oriented show previously held in Barcelona and in Madrid. In the end, the Spanish show will be held next year in Zaragoza, inside the premises of this year’s local World Fair.
Messe München is still considering the organization of new sporting goods shows in new emerging markets such as Brazil or India, but nothing has yet been decided on this score. The 4th ISPO China show, held in Beijing at the end of last month, ended up with11,108 visits by trade professionals during the three days of the fair, up from 9,043 a year ago. The number of exhibiting brands grew to 329 from 300. The switch to a new venue allow the fair to occupy a larger area of 20,000 square meters and offer a clearer segmentation of the product categories. The previously reported deals with Nielsen Business Media in the USA and Alpitec in Italy should contribute to further progress of the fair in the future.
Meanwhile, Messe München is considering launching a new show concept in Munich for the Summer of 2009. As an alternative to last year’s sports and style event, it had proposed holding two simultaneous fashion-oriented and performance-oriented fairs in different parts of the city in the Summer of 2008, but it did not get enough support from the sporting goods industry. The idea now is to concentrate on the sports-inspired lifestyle segment alone, and to do it right from next year. Outdoor companies may be invited for the event.
