bauma is the largest trade fair in the world, and in Munich you notice it well beyond the grounds. Over half a million visitors across seven days means hotels booked out as far as Augsburg, taxis gone and a permanently overcrowded U6. Anyone travelling to bauma often has their hotel well outside the city.
ISPO falls in the coldest part of the year, and that is the practical heart of this page. Late January in Munich means slush, darkness from half past four and taxis nobody can get hold of. Anyone heading out to Riem at eight in the morning with sample cases notices it immediately.
IAA Mobility is the only major Munich fair that runs at two locations at once. The trade exhibition sits on the grounds at Riem, while the Open Space spreads across the city centre: Odeonsplatz, Königsplatz, Wittelsbacherplatz, Ludwigstrasse. Between the two lie forty minutes and half of the city itself.
electronica is the world's leading electronics fair and runs in Munich every two years in November. The audience is international and technical: buyers, developers, engineers, many of them from Asia. For most of them Munich is a city they see for four days once every two years and not otherwise at all.
EXPO REAL is not a fair at which anybody strolls. Three days in which the European property industry works through its annual meetings, often at twenty-minute intervals and at three stands one after another. Anyone who misses an appointment here does not catch it up later, they move it to next year instead.
BAU is the world's leading fair for architecture and building materials and runs at Messe München every two years in January. Around 200,000 trade visitors across five days, plus deep winter: that means full hotels, taxis long gone and a U6 you would not want to board with sample cases.
