In its 50th year, NürnbergMesse in German has announced a new record, welcoming its 50 millionth visitor to the Exhibition Centre during Spielwarenmesse, the International Toy Fair.
The honour of being that special visitor went to US toy retailer David Castillo from Utah, who was welcomed by Nuremberg Lord Mayor and chairman of the Supervisory Board of NürnbergMesse GmbH Marcus König, NürnbergMesse Group CEO Peter Ottmann and Florian Hess, member of the Spielwarenmesse Management Board.
As a small token of thanks, the Messe gave him a gingerbread heart with ‘50,000,000’ on it, and Spielwarenmesse presented him with a ‘red rocking horse’, the symbol of the fair.
The Toy Fair was instrumental in bringing NürnbergMesse into existence. Spielwarenmesse – then still located on the Berliner Platz in Nuremberg – was bursting at the seams by the end of the 1960s. In the search for a suitable new location the trade fair found what they were looking for in the city’s Langwasser district.
“The Spielwarenmesse is a flagship for Nuremberg as a business and exhibition venue, and its visitors have made a significant contribution to the success story of NürnbergMesse. Congratulations on achieving this new record of fifty million visitors!” said Nuremberg Lord Mayor Marcus König.
NürnbergMesse Group CEO Peter Ottmann added: “In our anniversary year, we are very pleased to see David Castillo break this record at the Spielwarenmesse, which shows once again that the world feels at home at our events.”
The new exhibition centre was inaugurated with the 24th International Toy Fair from 2 to 9 February 1973. The new home was able to almost five times the number of exhibitors and offered almost 20 times the exhibition space. NürnbergMesse was officially established when it was entered in the commercial register on 5 April 1974.
“We would like to congratulate NürnbergMesse on its 50th anniversary and the 50 millionth visitor to the exhibition centre,” said Florian Hess, member of the Management Board of Spielwarenmesse eG.
The number of visitors to the Exhibition Centre Nuremberg has grown from 396,000 in 1974, the year it was founded, to 10 million in 1987, to 25 million in 1999 and on to 40 million in 2012.
In 2019, Spielwarenmesse eG and NürnbergMesse extended their long-standing partnership through to 2028.
