Virtual exhibition stands at the Flying Fair Thuringia: For more success on international markets!

The Flying Fair Thuringia is a joint project with the Landesentwicklungsgesellschaft Thüringen (LEG Thüringen). The company pursues the goal of making Thuringia an attractive business, investment and technology location. LEG usually accompanies Thuringian companies to trade fairs and congresses and thus strengthens their international networking, among other things. During the pandemic, the idea came up to create a digital platform in which worldwide contact is guaranteed.

The Flying Fair offers effective solutions for this: it makes it possible for Thuringian companies to be present on the international stage and attracts attention for the business location - with immense reach and constant accessibility. In a year-round virtual exhibition with interactive digital exhibition stands, Thuringian companies are given the opportunity to win new partners and customers as well as to present their know-how internationally. The broad spectrum of exhibitors includes medium-sized companies from the fields of medical technology, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and optical electronics. 

Original lobby and exhibition halls with numerous exhibition stands

To make the virtual experience and exchange as realistic as possible for visitors, we digitised the premises of LEG's headquarters in Erfurt true to the original. For this purpose, we created a virtual reception lobby with matching exhibition halls and conference room. Since the start of the project in January 2021, the number of exhibitors has increased from 13 to 35, so we have developed exhibition halls with different scaling levels. As soon as a new exhibitor joins the Flying Fair, he is automatically admitted to one of the two main exhibition halls and receives a virtual exhibition stand that he can set up individually. The exhibition stands can be equipped with a company logo, brochures, info sheets, image videos, roll-ups and links via an online configurator, thus enabling an interactive experience. Via the virtual business cards of the avatars, international visitors can get in touch with the representatives of the exhibiting companies via chat, video call or e-mail. 

International special exhibitions for individual company presentations

For a certain period of time, various country-specific special exhibitions take place on the event platform. With these, exhibitors focus on the know-how and interests of visitors from a specific country and present selected products and services. So far, exhibitions for Russia, Vietnam, Austria and China as well as South America have already been presented in individual rooms under the name "ENTRADA".

Designing agile virtual events - also for the future

The international cooperation with visitors and exhibitors from all over the world, including China, presented the project with persistent challenges. For example, YouTube videos that were to be made accessible on large wall monitors in the exhibition stands could not be viewed by the Chinese population due to China's strict censorship guidelines. However, thanks to the agile and efficient cooperation with LEG's project management, we managed to integrate the videos into the Chinese network and make them visible to the participants. We were also able to respond quickly to the wishes of the exhibitors thanks to the flexibility of our platform: To simplify participation, we integrated a button that can be used to enter the lobby without logging in. The 3D areas can thus also be visited without registration. 

LEG is the first business development company in the Federal Republic to set up and operate such a project. The special thing about the Flying Fair is that it is a year-round project that runs around the clock, can be used at any time and presents versatile content. The interactively created content can be reused and reused again, so that sustainable content takes on a whole new meaning. With the configurator, content can be flexibly adapted and exchanged so that the information material is always up to date. LEG as well as exhibitors and partners at home and abroad are very satisfied with our platform and the versatile software, as interesting and promising contacts have already been made through the Flying Fair Thuringia. We will continue to work more intensively on the further development of the matchmaking and networking functions in order to continue to enable all participants to have a pleasant and innovative exchange with each other. 

With the "Flying Fair Thuringia", a virtual permanent exhibition has been created that is open to all Thuringian industrial companies. In addition, we actively use the "Flying Fair" as an event platform, for example for online business missions, the information events at our Café International and networking meetings. We plan to continue this offer, but in the future we will increasingly hold events in hybrid form.

Dr Stefan Blechschmidt, Team Leader Thuringia International



Thanks to our excellent cooperation, several projects and events have already been implemented together with LEG. We are pleased to be able to support the Flying Fair Thuringia with our platform. Exhibitors and visitors can register until December and promote the Thuringian economy in international discourse. Register now free of charge at: https://flying-fair-thuringia.on.expo-x.com