Subcontracting and Finnish Craft & Design fairs postponed to 2021
News Press release 03.09.2020
Tampere Trade Fairs Ltd. has decided to move the international Subcontracting Trade Fair, the AlihankintaHEAT event and the Finnish Craft and Design Fair to next year. Subcontracting Trade Fair was already postponed from September to 8–10 December 2020, but now the event will be moved to 21–23 September 2021. Finnish Craft and Design Fair was planned to be held on 13–15 November 2020, but the event will be postponed by a year and will be held on 12–14 November 2021. Subcontracting and Finnish Craft and Design fairs are the largest annual events of Tampere Trade Fairs Ltd.
“We have had extensive discussions with our customers, fair committees and various other stakeholders during August. Based on the summaries of these conversations, our company’s management and board have decided to move Subcontracting and Finnish Craft & Design fairs to next year. These are our largest events, which is why this decision was considered carefully. We have worked hard to ensure that events can be held safely also in the future. Our large premises would have enabled for us to follow the current authority guidelines, but, at the moment, successful event production is not only limited by the safety issues, but also the uncertainty about possible new restrictions and a potential new wave of the coronavirus pandemic, companies’ extensive travel bans and remote working recommendations, travel restrictions between different countries, and the fear and uncertainty experienced by people. Due to all this, the decision to postpone the events is the right solution. This situation will bring us major challenges, but, thanks to our group’s stable finances, we will survive this year, and our customers don’t need to worry about the future of the fairs,” says Managing Director Hannu Vähätalo from the Tampere Trade Fairs Group.
“We have listened to our customers and partners carefully and kept a close eye on how the pandemic has developed. The 30-year history of the Subcontracting Trade Fair has seen many challenging times, both in industry and economy, but the trade fair has provided an important place for people to meet even through those times. Now, these meetings have become risks, though only for a while. A warm thank you to all our customers for their support and belief in the future of these events. It has become clear that virtual events and the mandatory digital leap in our everyday lives have brought many good things to stay in our work lives, but they do not take away our need to have real, face-to-face contacts. We trust that next year we will be able to execute the number one event of industry as expected. This December, we will meet each other in a virtual Subcontracting event. We will tell you more about this during September, but the theme will remain the same: Business from Data,” says the project manager of the Subcontractor Trade Fair, Tanja Järvensivu, who is also the Tampere Trade Fairs Group’s Communications Director.
“The decision to postpone Finnish Craft & Design Fair was difficult for both us as the organisers and for several Finnish arts and crafts entrepreneurs and designers, for whom this event has traditionally been the most important sales venue of the entire year or, for some, the only sales channel for their crafts and materials. The large visitor numbers prove that the fair is the highlight of the year not only to professionals of the craft and design field, but also to hobbyists and fans of Finnish craft and design. This year, we were supposed to celebrate the event’s 25-year anniversary, but now the anniversary year will be launched in November with a virtual fair and the actual celebration will be postponed by a year,” says Tampere Trade Fairs Group’s HR Manager Jasmin Saadetdin-Rikkinen, who is in charge of the Finnish Craft & Design Fair.
Subcontracting Trade Fair and Finnish Craft and Design have a major impact on economy in the Tampere region
According to a study by Haaga-Helia, the financial impact of the events held at Tampere Exhibition and Sports Centre was €67.1 million last year in the Tampere region, and the events by Tampere Trade Fairs made up €30.3 million of that. The increase in sales for the hotels and restaurants in the City of Tampere that could be allocated to Tampere Trade Fairs was €13.3 million. The Subcontracting Trade Fair’s proportion of these financial impacts was about €6.4 million and the Finnish Craft & Design’s proportion €2.6 million. According to the study, the effect Tampere Trade Fairs have on employment was 402 person-years, 80.4 person-years of which was allocated to the Subcontracting Trade Fair and 34.4 to Finnish Craft & Design.
More detailed instructions about postponing the fairs will be sent to the exhibitors via email, and more information is available on the events’ websites: https://www.kadentaidot.fi/en/, https://www.alihankinta.fi/en/.
The Subcontracting Trade Fair, established in 1988, brings together more than a thousand exhibitors from 20 countries and about 20,000 industry professionals from 30 countries annually. The Finnish Craft & Design Fair has been held annually since 1995, bringing together more than 700 craft and design field’s entrepreneurs and about 55,000 fair visitors. Nearly 150,000 visitors come to the events every year. The Tampere Trade Fairs Group includes the parent company Tampere Trade Fairs Ltd. as well as the Group’s own event production agency Finland Events and subsidiaries Finland Restaurants Oy – Finnresta and Expotec Oy. The Group has a staff of 62 people, and its turnover last year was €13 million. The Group’s headquarters are located at the Tampere Exhibition and Sports Centre.
FURTHER INFORMATION: www.tampereenmessut.fi, www.alihankinta.fi/en, www.kadentaidot.fi/en
Hannu Vähätalo, the Group’s Managing Director, tel. +358 500 620 806
Tanja Järvensivu, Communications Director, Subcontracting Trade Fair’s Project Manager, tel. +35850 536 8133
Jasmin Saadetdin-Rikkinen, the Group’s HR Manager,
Finnish Craft & Design Fair’s Project Manager, tel. +35840 135 0110
firstname.lastname@tampereenmessut.fi