It will be the same again this year. On Monday evening, it will be in the halls around the Frankfurt Messeturm look like on a huge construction site: everywhere cable drums, boxes and containers, instead of new cars you see only old forklift, clean carpet no trace, in the air is a smell of fresh Not even the greatest optimists can believe that paint, glue and cleaning agents will open the continent's biggest auto show within a few hours. And yet, just like every year, they will be back on time: if the press and the trade visitors move through the halls on Thursday, the forklifts have disappeared, the smell of champagne and canapés is shining on the stages polished premiere sheet in headlamps whose summed radiance puts even the sun in the shade.
For this production, the manufacturers drive an effort that breaks all expectations. Not only that, in principle, they are already at the end of the fair with the plans for the next one IAA start in two years. Also, the concrete construction often takes weeks, sometimes even months. Mercedes, for example, during the IAA traditionally in the old venerable Festhalle at home, arrives in Frankfurt already two months before the fair and begins with the construction of a very own glittering world. No wonder, after all, the Swabians are assembling 150 employees with almost 10.000 square meters of exhibition space including 1.500 mobile and 3.000 permanently installed headlights, several fixed shelves in the Festhalle, connected by a gigantic escalator, and laying a total of 235 kilometers of cable. And all that, so that in the end not even 80 cars are in the right light.
With the competition, the effort is hardly less. Opel, for example, brings 160 trucks full of material into the exhibition hall, which is unloaded and assembled with three forklifts and 41 lifts - including 54 loudspeakers with a total of 32.000 watts, 500 square meters of LED displays, 60 tons of steel, 100 tons of wood and 1.200 square meters of carpeting , And for the VW group around 400 articulated lorries drive until Hall 3.0 looks like a small car city. For VW alone, this includes 200 kilometers of cable and 200 tons of steel and for Audi in-house on the open-air site, each with 800 square meters of glass and mirror surface and 640 steps, with which the Bavarians overcome a total of 115 vertical meters at their stand.
Perhaps the most spectacular booth, meanwhile, has BMW. Because for the premiere of i3 and i8, Bayern have for the first time paved a real lane into the hall, where they can present cars as they should: On the move. Since then BMW has constantly developed the concept, modified the test track over and over again and rebuilt it again. On Tuesday, therefore, the new sevens will make their rounds on an 400-meter long circular path - and have unwound around 44.000 kilometers by the end of the fair. This is more than a circumnavigation of the earth at the equator. No wonder that this road is not built in a few days, but also the BMW troupe came weeks ago from Munich to the Main.
But the clock is ticking and everyone has to be ready on Tuesday morning. When the last carpet is laid and the last spotlight is set, there is a major shift change on the IAA site. The army of blue men and overalls moves away and makes room for hosts of men and women in fine yarn. At BMW, for example, around 1.000 employees are assigned to the IAA appearance - including 172 hostesses alone. At Audi, 372 people are on duty every day and even at Hyundai, 110.
With the new staff, the material battle continues during the fair - only that the exhibitors then fight with other weapons: canapés instead of cables, brochures instead of pyrotechnics, beer instead of stage elements and gourmet menus instead of overseas containers. And the numbers are no less impressive there too: For example, Hyundai is planning with 4.000 cups of coffee, 550 liters of drinking water, 2.200 soft drinks and 1.400 three-course menus. And as a precaution, Audi has already stashed 400 kilos of gummy bears.
In addition there is the general catering by the organizer. The trade fair company alone has increased its kitchen and culinary staff more than tenfold: 100 temporary helpers for the 1.200 staff and service staff will visit 2.000 once again during the IAA - not counting the XNUMX service providers for cleaning, service and guarding.
While hostesses and consultants, cooks and waiters toil for two weeks, the booth builders do well to use the time until Sunday in a week to relax and sank the soreness. Because during the fair for the booth staff on the evening of 27. Septembers is actually sung and the big horn concert marks the end of the closing time, it is for the Blaumänner the undoubted signal to the next act of drudgery. As soon as the last guest has left the hall, the picture changes again on the grounds in Frankfurt. Just a car show, conquer again then the forklifts and trucks the stage. If that is not the perfect setting for the next IAA - the commercial vehicle fair in autumn 2016 in Hannover.
Author: Benjamin Bessinger / SP-X