Hannover; Düsseldorf, Germany — Organizers of two of Europe's largest industrial trade shows, Hannover Fair and Interkama, report that they're merging the two events into one. Deutsche Messe AG (DEMAG) and Messe Düsseldorf GmbH will fold Interkama into Hannover Fair, and "will jointly stage Interkama within the compass of Hannover Messe 2004" on April 19-24, 2004. For Interkama, this represents the second change of date since its last running, as well as a change of venue.

DEMAG reports that adding Interkama fulfills its new concept for Hannover Fair, which envisions alternating its focus yearly between the fields of process and manufacturing automation. This concept is initially set to launch in 2005, setting the stage for a horizontally integrated flagship industrial automation fair, which now has the green light for 2004. The theme for the 2004 show will be "Milestones in Innovation."

In addition, the two organizers report that their agreement will help them cooperate on staging all Interkama fairs worldwide, and will allow them to embrace production automation, as well as process automation. For example, Interkama China, which was successfully launched in March 2003 in Shanghai, will be organized as a joint project in the future. Other joint events will likely be held in Russia, India, and the Czech Republic, where Messe Düsseldorf is expected to benefit from a strong position as Deutsche Messe AG's partner. Likewise, Hannover Fair's strong base in Turkey will help Messe Düsseldorf establish a foothold there. Still more venues are being considered, but haven't been scheduled yet.