Premiere for New Hamburg Fair at SMM 2008 - 23–26 Sept.

The building work for the new trade fair site was accelerated by Hamburg Messe specially for the SMM 2008, to maximise the space available to SMM exhibitors at the New Hamburg Trade Fair. The results is that even the last Hall, B7, will also be completed by September, in time for the SMM. That means the New Hamburg Trade Fair is ready for operation 6 months ahead of the originally scheduled date. That completes the whole of the site, with its large, well lit halls and characteristic white, wave-shaped roofs and glass facades. It is an effective symbiosis of modern aestetics with functionally flexibility and efficient logistics. It gives Hamburg one of Europe’s most advanced citycentre fair sites.
Senator Gunar Uldall, President of the department of Economics and Labour, underscores the importance of the New Hamburg Trade Fair – “The expansion and modernisation of the Fair and the CCH means that HMC can at last make full use of the potential offered by a major city like Hamburg. It can move full speed ahead to continue attracting new events and building on existing ones. Trade fairs and conferences were shown by a study published in 2007 to have particularly strong multiplier effects for the city where they are located, HMC already secures more than 4,000 jobs in Hamburg.”
The decision to push ahead for earlier completion of the expansion and conversion programme is justified by the demand for exhibition space at the world’s leading fair for the shipbuilding and equipment supply industry. The record achieved at the last SMM will easily be exceeded at this year’s SMM, with more than 1,800 exhibitors. There are more than 260 first-time exhibitors at this greatest showcase for world shipbuilding, including numerous shipyards and associations such as KOSHIPA, the shipbuilding association of the world’s number one shipbuilding nation Korea. The SMM 2008 was already fully booked by the time of the registration deadline in November 2007, earlier than ever before. Many of the regular SMM exhibitors want larger stands at the SMM 2008. There are so many applicaitons that not all of them can be accommodated in the available space, and the SMM Management has had to start a waiting list.
This run on the SMM is hardly surprising, with its growing appeal and importance as the platform for the most advanced maritime products and technologies. Highlights of the SMM, as at previous events, include the numerous international conferences and workshops which are organised concurrently with the exhibition, at the Fair site or at the Congress Center. The SMM 2008 will for the first time be the setting for the international conference on “Maritime Security and Defence” (MS&D) on 24 and 25 September.
The complete exhibition space is avilable for the first time at the SMM 2008, and Hamburg Messe is making full use of that to re-structure the exhibition areas at the SMM 2008 – giving a better overview and more transparency. Practically all areas have grown substantially. The shipyards will be concentrated in the four existing halls (B1 to B4). Their upper floors are reserved for most of the 23 national pavilions. Electronics and electrics will be in the largest of the new halls (B6). Maritime equipment and services will be in the new halls B5 and B7. Ship management systems will be in hall A1 in the new part of the Fair site. The neighbouring hall A2 is dedicated to pumps and compressors. Halls A3 and A4 are allocated to the growing segment of engine and propulsion system manufacturers. This new structure helps SMM visitors to arrange their visit to the trade fair even more efficiently.
The SMM
is the heavyweight among shipbuilding fairs in Asia, Europe and America. It is where technological trends are set and innovations presented – for example with green propulsion systems and waste management, with the latest developments in communication and information technology, with navigation and automation systems, and with maritime services. Two engine manufacturers have already announced that they will present new diesel engines to the specialist public for the first time at the SMM 2008.