Going to Interzoo 2021 to be an ‘odd’ choice in future

The next edition of the Interzoo tradeshow will take place in Nuremberg, Germany, 1-4 June 2021. The show organiser WZF has effectively postponed the 2020 edition of the bi-annual event to 2021. They announced it would, beyond 2021, run in an odd year cycle.

“Originally, we would have celebrated the opening of Interzoo 2020 with 2,000 exhibitors and almost 40,000 visitors, but due to Covid-19 we had to reschedule the event by a year,” said WZF’s CEO Alexandra Facklamm.

“In selecting the new date it was important for us to talk with all the parties that are crucial to making Interzoo a success,” Facklamm added.

With the pet supply sector likely to face major economic challenges in the years to come, Facklamm said that major stakeholders had agreed that, “a positive signal provided by a successful tradefair can generate the impulse needed to help the industry through difficult times.”

WZF and the German Pet Trade and Industry Association (ZZF), the honorary sponsor of Interzoo, said they had received major support from the industry with their decision to move Interzoo to next year and to an odd-year cycle in future.

“Since the last Interzoo in 2018, companies have put a lot of effort and hard work into developing new products that were ready to enter the market this year,” Facklamm noted. “Manufacturers need a market platform like Interzoo in order to get the best benefit from these new developments. For many companies, four years without the world’s leading fair in their sector would be too long a break,” she added. Katharina Engling, Chairperson of the Interzoo Advisory Committee, said: “To get quickly back onto the path to success, the specialist trade and the manufacturing industry must be given an appropriate opportunity to prepare for business. As the world’s largest tradefair for pet supplies, Interzoo meets this requirement perfectly. The deals concluded at Interzoo are the economic foundation for many of the businesses that exhibit here.”

Interzoo 2021 will take place from Tuesday to Friday and will span a public holiday. Several of Germany’s federal states will celebrate Corpus Christi on 3 June 2021 and shops will be closed, which organisers say should help with the planning process for many independent specialist suppliers intending to travel to Nuremberg as visitors.

“The holiday will be important for our German tradefair visitors,” Facklamm said. “We are therefore doubly pleased, not only to have found a good date in an otherwise full NürnbergMesse event calendar, but also to have one that includes a holiday in the same way as the schedule we were accustomed to.”

Organisers said the Interzoo project team was currently working with exhibitors who already registered on the necessary steps for the postponement process of Interzoo in connection with the new timing. From 1 July, they added, exhibitors that have not yet registered for Interzoo 2021 can do so via: www.interzoo.com

WZF is the founder, owner and organiser of the world’s largest international tradefair for the pet supplies industry. For its last, 2018, edition Interzoo attracted 1,900 exhibitors and 39,000 trade visitors from 125 countries.