German Technology Day Coverage

October 27, 2020

By Sarah Pickard

As has become the norm for the Trade Show world in 2020, this year German Technology Day moved online in order to accommodate its international audience of manufacturers and media. While we had some initial trouble logging in the morning, German Technology Day responded quickly to our inquiries and got us online.

Inside the virtual lobby, attendees were given access to the auditorium, media room, and exhibit hall. This year the conference featured panels and booths from EPLAN, Rittal, Bosch Rexroth, Murrelektronik, PILZ, and WAGO. Each company had their own webinar in the auditorium section of the virtual lobby, and all six companies collaborated in the morning and afternoon on the ‘Discover the Power of Connectivity & Collaboration’ webinar, where they walked the audience through the Manufacturing Value Chain from design to production. All of these webinars are now available to watch on-demand on the German Technology Day website.

Inside the exhibit hall, each company had their own virtual booth, filled with introductory videos and downloadable brochures in the virtual pamphlet section, with the option to add them to your virtual briefcase for easier locating outside of the booth. In each booth, live representatives were available to chat, and we took advantage of this at the Bosch Rexroth booth to learn more about their ctrlX AUTOMATION system.

One booth that stood out particularly was the Murrelektronik booth, which had gone so far as to develop a 3-D recreation of their actual booth space in the live trade show. Much like Google Street View, attendees could virtually walk around the booth to look at the information in the virtual displays. For those missing the physicality of live trade shows, it was a welcome addition, although one couldn’t tour the virtual booth and access the rest of the trade show at the same time, which made keeping up with other aspects of the show a little more difficult.

 Some trade shows we’ve attended this year have offered raffles, and German Technology Day was no different, with attendees given the possibility to win cash prizes, provided they completed the virtual scavenger hunt. Naturally, I had a go of it, though I’ll admit I couldn’t find all the information they wanted. While hunting around the show was a good way to get attendees to explore, it reminded me too much of the sort of assignment my high school teachers might have assigned to make sure we did the reading.

 The Media Room advertised this year’s media partners—Annex Business Media and Kerrwil Publications—for their coverage of German Technology Day, which was a nice touch I haven’t seen in other trade shows I’ve attended this year.

 The only other complaint I had about the show was that none of the information was available after the trade show closed, so if you were hoping to snag those pamphlets another time, you were out of luck. Still, a few hiccups aside, this year’s German Technology Day delivered its information very well in these unprecedented times, and we hope that the virtual trade show will continue to be an option for attendees, even once in-person shows resume.