Management Structure: Who Owns the Messe Firms?
The German messes, or tradeshow companies, have perfected the technique for hosting and producing exhibitions, first at home and then abroad, with an uncanny sense of where unmined opportunities lay. There’s scarcely a region of the world without a show produced by one of the German organizations. But who owns them? Who runs them? Most know that government is involved, but to what extent? In short, German cities and states own most of the messes, but have little or nothing to do with running them. From there, however, it gets more complicated. There is typically a mix of public and private ownership and management elements. Cities and federal states own all the large and most medium-sized exhibition centers. The cities involved usually have a share of between 50 and 100 percent; states, a bit less. “In general, the city is the bigger partner, and the state is the smaller one,” said Harald Koetter, director of public relations and market transparency for AUMA — the Assn. of the German T
