Individual exhibitors
For companies with their own stand. We build your participation concept with you and support you every week until the fair opens.
Exhibitor Success is what we do.
Participation concepts that make your trade fair budget deliver measurable returns.
One exhibitor, a group, or a whole trade fair.
Joint pavilions
For chambers, associations, agencies and export promotion bodies that take companies to a trade fair together. Each exhibitor sharpens their own profile, and the pavilion still comes across as one.
Organisers
For organisers who want to offer their exhibitors a programme. The same work we do for individual exhibitors, delivered as an Exhibitor Success programme.
Are your trade fairs as successful as they could be?
Perhaps they are? Or perhaps one of these sounds familiar:
- “We struggle to get the right people to our stand.”
- “We keep changing stand contractors.”
- “Our stand is busy. We're just not sure who with.”
- “We've worked with the same suppliers for years. Out of habit.”
- “Whether a trade fair paid off is mostly down to gut feeling.”
44.1%
of exhibitors say getting the right visitors to their stand is a key challenge. You're not alone.
Source: AUMA Exhibitor Outlook 2026/27 (in German)
If none of these rings a bell, you probably don't need us. If one or more does, it's worth a closer look.
So what's going on?
Success is decided before anyone designs a stand.
Many exhibitors start with the tender, with competing designs from several stand contractors, or with booking space, hotels and travel. All of that comes later.
Go into one hundred per cent execution with seventy per cent clarity, and you will pay for it. Not always straight away. But inevitably.
Trade fair success starts with giving visitors a good reason to come to your stand.
That's exactly why we built the MesseCode.
Seven levels, one at a time. Levels 1 to 4 give you your briefing, level 5 your positioning, level 6 your stand logic and level 7 your Visitor Journey. Together, they make up your participation concept. The method draws on more than 800 trade fair projects.
Goals
What exactly should this trade fair achieve?
What this level produces: One clearly worded primary goal, two secondary goals at most, explicit non-goals, and for every goal a way to tell whether, and by when, you've reached it.
From the Playbook:If you could name just one figure after the fair to say whether it was worth it, what would it be?
1 unclear10 clearCompany and market role
What position are we acting from?
What this level produces: Your Company Profile for this fair: how you see yourselves compared with how others see you, where you sit among your competitors, and a clear statement of what your company stands for at this event.
From the Playbook:Describe your role in one sentence without using “innovative”, “leading”, “partner” or “solution”. What's left?
1 unclear10 clearProduct and service logic
Which offerings support this strategy?
What this level produces: Your Product Profile: a deliberate selection for this fair, a reason for every product on the stand, and an opening topic that gets conversations started.
From the Playbook:You have to drop one of your core products. Which one, and what would become clearer?
1 unclear10 clearIdeal customers and decision-maker roles
Which companies and which decision-makers?
What this level produces: Prioritised ideal customer profiles, two or three decision-maker roles for each, with their needs, and a simple test your team can use to spot a conversation that isn't relevant.
From the Playbook:Name three real companies that fit your ideal customer profile.
1 unclear10 clearArgument structure
Which arguments will hold up?
What this level produces: For each of your priority decision-makers, one to three complete lines of argument using FAB+T: feature, advantage, benefit, and the proof that makes it credible.
From the Playbook:Your visitor hears your value proposition and just says: “So?” What do you say next?
1 unclear10 clearTouchpoint logic on the stand
Which touchpoints, and what is each one for?
What this level produces: A job for every touchpoint: what a visitor needs to do, understand or check there. Exhibits only where they serve a purpose.
From the Playbook:What will a visitor say about your stand over dinner that evening?
1 unclear10 clearVisitor Journey
How do the right visitors reach the stand, and what happens afterwards?
What this level produces: The visitor's path before, during and after the fair: a reason to visit for each target visitor, an opening line and a qualifying question, and, for every possible outcome of a conversation, the next step and who owns it.
From the Playbook:Who writes the follow-up message, and on which day?
1 unclear10 clear
Rate each level from 1 to 10. The full test goes deeper and shows where your biggest risks are.
Take the full Strategy TestStrategy doesn't work at seventy per cent. It works as a system.
What makes you stand out at a fair is already there in your company. We ask questions, guide, structure and bring out what matters. You don't need an agency budget for that. You do need to be willing to put in the work.
What you walk away with: your participation concept.
It answers every question your trade fair raises, before anyone spends money. It isn't a stand design or a creative concept. It's the foundation both are built on.
Briefing.
Across the first four levels of the MesseCode: what the fair needs to achieve, for whom and with what offer. This is where we spend most of our time. ‘Our target group? New customers.’ is an answer, but you can't build a concept on it. So we keep asking: which industry, which role, which person, in what situation, with what problem.
Positioning.
Distilled from the briefing: what you stand for, and who you reach with what.
Stand logic.
What needs to happen on your stand: which touchpoints, which processes, which conversations. Described in functional terms, so your stand contractor can develop the stand design from it.
Visitor Journey.
The route your visitors take before, during and after the fair. It also shows which concepts you'll need.
Participation concept
Briefing · Positioning · Stand logic · Visitor Journey
- Stand design
- Graphic design
- Social media and campaigns
- Invitations and pre-fair communication
- Team and training
- Lead management
After the fair, they sound like this:
- “The right visitors come to our stand.”
- “Our stand contractor and suppliers know what the end result should be, and every euro goes into something that works.”
- “We know who we’re talking to, and our team’s conversations turn into follow-up meetings.”
- “We work with the suppliers who fit our goal.”
- “We can show whether the fair paid off.”
Whether you stay with your current suppliers or bring in new ones, the participation concept gives them all the same brief, so they can do their best work. Only what has a job to do gets built. Nothing else.
So how does the participation concept make it onto the stand?
Someone to keep the plan on track when things get busy.
Your participation concept is in place. Now comes the run-up to the fair. Touchpoints are built, stand contractors, agencies, hotels and logistics partners need coordinating, and the team is trained. Every week brings new decisions, and the pressure builds until the fair.
In the Weeklys, we work out which concepts you need, how far to take each one, who delivers them and on what budget. The Weeklys also make sure your positioning holds up under that pressure: one fixed hour a week, focused on substance. An experienced member of our team checks the project against the strategy, sets priorities, reviews suppliers' quotes and makes sure the positioning is carried through.
Have one hundred per cent clarity but deliver only seventy per cent of it, and you pay just the same.
After six to eight weeks of weekly sessions, your team knows how to handle a trade fair better than any seminar could have taught them.
What working with us feels like.
What clients who have worked with the MesseCode say.
“We went from 200 conversations at the stand to more than 800.”
For many years, fairconcept shaped our trade fair appearances worldwide. Clear positioning meant we were also seen as one of the top five logistics brands at trade fairs. The lead figures speak for themselves.
Andine Wahlmann (née Fecker)Panalpina, now DSV
Each square is one conversation at the stand. “Visitors came because they were curious.”
For many people, our stand at the BVL Congress was their first contact with us, and the curiosity grew year after year. We barely talked about products. We found out what mattered to visitors and followed up those contacts systematically.
Sascha TilliSenior Vice President Commercial, DP World, at LGI at the time
“The MesseCode was a real game-changer.”
fairconcept took us through every stage of the project, bringing clear structure, experience and well-targeted input. Thanks to that groundwork, we could do a lot in-house and keep building on it with a clear focus.
Diana DietzProject Lead, Fürstenberg Institut
“Structure, calm and genuine engagement.”
fairconcept supports our trade fair presence with clarity and a personal touch. New circumstances led to a stand design that grabs attention and was planned with sustainability in mind.
Tizian WernerPR & Communications Manager, Solandeo GmbH
“Fun but focused.”
Colin Wells, Global Head of Perishables, Scan Global Logistics
“Professional, with plenty of energy and fun.”
Anne Pfannschmidt, Bestes Pferd Akademie
“First-class collaboration throughout our many years at Panalpina.”
Volker Böhringer, DSV
“The way you've moved from the traditional agency model to equipping exhibitors to do it themselves shows exactly the spirit of innovation our industry needs.”
Bettina Wild, Head of the NürnbergMesse Startup-Hub
Exhibitor Success is a new discipline.
Software companies know it as customer success: the provider makes sure its customers succeed with the product. We bring that idea to trade fairs. As well as individual exhibitors, we help whole groups of exhibitors succeed. The MesseCode is built for working with individual exhibitors in comparable groups.
Three current programmes.
- GITEX GlobalDubai · December 2026Programme running
In the foreign trade fair programme of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
- BIOFACHNuremberg · February 2027Registration openRegister now
With NürnbergMesse, for the start-ups in the Young Innovators area.
- Nor-ShippingLillestrøm · June 2027Registration opens in JanuaryKeep me posted
With the German-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce (AHK Norway), for exhibitors on the German Pavilion.
A ministry, trade fair organisers, a German Chamber of Commerce Abroad. Technology, organic food, shipping. Three different set-ups, one method behind them all. Find out how it could work for your exhibitors.
Meet fairconcept.
Twenty-five years in B2B live marketing. We started out as a trade fair agency. Today, by choice, we no longer build stands, produce stand graphics or run tenders. We deliver what comes first: the briefing and the positioning, because the expensive mistakes happen before anything gets built. And we stay until the strategy is on the stand, steering the whole project. We won't take the work off your hands. We will take away the uncertainty.
fairconcept in numbers
- Years in live marketing
- 25+
- since we were founded in 2000
- Trade fair projects
- 800+
- across more than 25 years, and the source of the MesseCode
- Talks & workshops
- 50+
- AUMA, German chambers of commerce at home and abroad (IHK, AHK), BVIK, OMT, industry conferences
- Publications
- 20+
- co-author of the book “Messen professionell managen” (Managing trade fairs professionally) and of the AUMA reference work “Erfolgreiche Messebeteiligung” (Successful trade fair participation), articles and interviews
From our years as a trade fair agency
Stands, stand teams, workshops and programmes across more than 25 years, for clients including Bosch, Siemens, Panalpina / DSV, Maersk, MAN, BASF, Messe Frankfurt, European Patent Office, MANN+HUMMEL, Hella, ElringKlinger, Drägerwerk, Dachser, Klett, Gira, Hella Gutmann Solutions, LGI, Antalis, VTG, Biotronik, AUMA, German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, DIHK, GIZ, NürnbergMesse, DLG, Fürstenberg Institut, SPECK Pumpen, GEWA, DTV, Solandeo, PURMO, C+C Pfeiffer, Pacovis, Swegon, VIT, Rema Tip Top, Hoppecke, Bergolin, toolcraft, Klüber, Rommelag, Kieback & Peter, Berghof, Orgadata, BÜFA, Lorch, AHK Norway, AHK Honduras, IPD / sequa, BSW, DPMA, IHK Regensburg, Vogel Business Media, Staatsanzeiger.
Anna-Katharina Esche
Played a key part in developing the MesseCode and manages fairconcept's partnerships. Co-author of “Messen professionell managen”.
Lars Lockemann
Leads positioning and strategy at fairconcept. Developed the MesseCode, drawing on more than 800 trade fair projects. Co-author of “Messen professionell managen”.
It starts with 30 minutes.
The first conversation is all about you and your next fair.
- What does success at a trade fair mean for you?
- How do you get there?
- What's holding you back right now?
Afterwards, you'll know where to start. With us or without us.