The 71st Ispo trade show ended in Munich after four days on Feb. 9 with a record increase in attendance. The number of daily passages through the turnstiles jumped by more than 25 percent from a year ago to over 80,000, confirming the fair's role as the leading international meeting point for the sporting goods sector. Many visitors and the executives of many of the exhibiting companies decided to stay one day longer than usual to get full benefit from the event. Sunday and Monday were again the hottest days, but Tuesday was pretty busy, too, and some top officials were also on hand on the last day for important business. Visitors came over from 106 countries and 67 percent of them were not German. Among the major national contingents, the biggest increases were registered from Germany, Italy, Austria, France, the Russian Federation, Spain, Poland, Norway and the U.S. The number of exhibitors increased by 202 to 2,267 as compared to a year ago, with 84 percent of them coming from abroad. They came from 49 countries, up from 45. There were many new exhibitors and others who returned to the show after a break, including Emporio Armani, 3M, Jansport and Skechers. Messe München's management intends to strengthen the Ispo brand' positioning as the major ?point of contact for the international sports business world.? Accordingly, the new corporate claim is ?Connecting Sports Business Professionals,? indicating that Ispo is the international platform for the sporting goods industry. To highlight this orientation, Messe München has put its Ispo corporate design upside down, developing a brand-new logo, which will be adopted to future shows. There will also be a change in names. Following unfruitful efforts in the past years to put up again a major summer edition of the fair like in the past, the surviving and thriving Ispo show in Munich will no longer be called Ispo Winter, but instead Ispo Munich. Consistently with this choice, the Ispo China fair will renamed Ispo Beijing after its next session later this month.
