Prime Minister Rutte: Can the trade fairs be reopened?

Empack: "The Cabinet compares us to dance parties, concerts and festivals. But trade fairs are different. In our large exhibition halls, visitors can easily keep their distance. We can easily maximise the number of visitors and spread them out over the days. Our industry has a protocol in place to ensure safe visits."

On Tuesday 9 June 2020, Easyfairs, together with various other trade fair organisations, will draw attention on a national scale to the reopening of trade fairs in the Netherlands. They will do this by means of advertisements in newspapers, in which attention is drawn to Prime Minister Rutte with the question: can the trade fairs be reopened? The campaign is supported across the entire sector: from exhibition organisers to event locations and from stand builders to trade journals.

The organisation indicates that it is important that it must be clear before 1 July whether trade fairs can reopen, otherwise the autumn will be lost. 

For the time being, no new information has been shared for events after 1 September 2020. Together with its suppliers and branch organisation CLC-Vecta, Easyfairs pleads with our governments to make a distinction between mass events and the trade fair sector. This distinction has already been made in Germany, and under certain conditions the first fairs may take place there again. Empack would like the Netherlands to follow Germany's example. This question has now been put to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, including an action plan/protocol, where it is described in detail how professionals can go to trade fairs again safely and responsibly. The first meeting with the Ministries of Economic Affairs and Climate and Education and Culture and Science with the delegation for Culture & Events has already taken place and a follow-up meeting is planned this week.

Empack.nl