YOUR FORUM FOR PLAY, SPORTS UND LEISURE AREAS
The PLAYGROUND segment and the 2nd Deutsche Golfplatztage provide important areas of landscaping like the construction and maintenance of playgrounds and golf courses with their own event. Some 1,000 exhibitors are expected from Germany and abroad.
“More than 90 per cent of the space used at the previous event is already booked four months before GaLaBau. The signs are good for building on the record result of 2008 – despite the difficult economic situation,” says Rolf Keller, new Member of the Management Board at NürnbergMesse. 983 exhibitors and 61,929 trade visitors from Germany and abroad were counted at the last GaLaBau in 2008. The GaLaBau exhibition offers the world’s most comprehensive range of products for the design, construction and maintenance of urban, green and open spaces. Some fifty per cent of the exhibitors present construction and maintenance machinery and equipment, about a quarter offer construction materials and plants, and another quarter cover special products like playground equipment, urban furnishings or the golf course construction and maintenance segment.
A new feature this year is a special show on “Tree Care and Tree Climbing” organized by freeworker and the tree climbing school Münchner Baumkletterschule. Demonstrations will take place daily at the special show in hall 7A.
2nd Deutsche Golfplatztage: the ball carries on rolling
After a successful premiere in 2008, the Deutsche Golfplatztage (German Golf Course Days) in hall 4A enter their second round as a segment of the GaLaBau exhibition. Golf course managers, operators and greenkeepers find everything at the exhibition for the construction, maintenance and management of golf courses. The central get-together for everyone interested in golf is the Meeting Point, where the golf associations involved present their services: Bundesverband Golfanlagen (BVGA), Deutscher Golf Verband (DGV), Golf Management Verband Deutschland (GMVD), Greenkeeper Verband Deutschland (GVD) and the Professional Golfers Association (PGA).
The Deutsche Golfplatztage are accompanied by a golf tournament on the first day of the exhibition and a two-day Golf Congress in CCN Ost on 16–17 September. A provisional list of exhibitors at the 2nd Deutsche Golfplatztage is available on the Internet at www.galabau.info-web.de/golfplatztage-gb.
Playgrounds are "lame"
There are baby playgrounds, "normal" playgrounds, multi-generation playgrounds and playgrounds for the elderly, but nothing actually suitable for young people. This age group doesn't really want to play in a "playground" – this is "lame" in teenage slang. Particularly cities should offer a variety of play areas and remain worth living in for all age groups, according to the Federal Association of Playground Equipment and Leisure Facility Manufacturers [Bundesverband der Spielplatzgeräte– und Freizeitanlagen-Hersteller (BSFH)], which together with the trade magazine Playground@Landscape has initiated the special show "Playpoints – modern playing in the city" in the PLAYGROUND segment. The special show presents new pioneering aspects of this issue and poses the following questions: What does a really good and attractive playground for children and young people of about 11 years or older look like? Is a "chill-out area" a fitting name for such a place? Can age-orientated "leisure grounds" combat boredom and so help to prevent vandalism, for example? Investments by local authorities would pay off.
Move@chill is what young people expect from a "playground" for their age group. Interested visitors can find more Move@Chill in the PLAYGROUND segment on stand 1-415 in hall 1 at GaLaBau 2010. A provisional list of exhibitors is available on the Internet at www.galabau.info.web.de/playground-gb.
Attractive supporting programme
GaLaBau is not just a product show, but offers an extremely comprehensive and technically interesting supporting programme that almost no other exhibition can match. The responsibility for this programme rests with the German landscaping federation – Bundesverband Garten-, Landschafts- und Sportplatzbau (BGL), the honorary sponsor of GaLaBau. Here is an extract from the programme to whet the appetite: TheELCA International Award for Ecological Construction & Landscaping will be presented again at GaLaBau 2010. The European Landscape Association (ELCA) and BGL jointly present this international award to promote interdisciplinary cooperation between developers, landscape architects and landscape gardeners. Many other events on green construction are also offered parallel to the exhibition. The spectrum of seminars covers topics from “German regulations for contracts with consumers” to “Bioengineering construction”. This year’s event also focuses on “Grass” and “Light in the garden”. In the Landscape Gardener Cup, the Germany-wide skills competition organized again this year, the best landscape gardeners from the individual states compete against each other to prove their professional skills. The aim is to determine the German champion team, which will also compete in the World Championship. TheGaLaBau Innovation Medal is awarded for new and progressive products and processes for the construction and maintenance of landscaped facilities and is meanwhile regarded in the industry as a seal of quality. All GaLaBau exhibitors offering a new product or major improvement are invited to enter. Detailed information and the entry conditions are obtainable from BGL.
Economic situation of the landscape sector in Germany
The German landscape sector with altogether 88,582 employees achieved a total turnover of 4.914 billion euros in 2009. “This is a very encouraging development,” says BGL President Hanns-Jürgen Redeker. In view of the previous record turnover of 4.911 billion euros in 2008, this means that turnover in the landscape sector remained surprisingly steady in 2009 despite the worldwide financial crisis. “The private garden sector with 51.27 per cent accounts for the largest market share of clients – and market research experts have confirmed that this sector still has more potential,” Redeker continues. The share of turnover from public clients dropped from 18.74 per cent in 2008 to 17.61 per cent in 2009. The number of trainees in 2009 rose by 3.4 per cent over 2008. Altogether 7,132 young people trained as landscape gardeners with commercial landscape contractors, compared with 6,898 trainees the year before.
About the NürnbergMesse Group
NürnbergMesse is one of the 20 largest exhibition companies in the world and among the Top Ten in Europe. The portfolio covers some 120 international exhibitions and congresses and more than 30 sponsored pavilions at the Nuremberg location and worldwide. Every year, some 24,500 exhibitors (international share: 33 %), 785,000 trade visitors (international share: 17 %) and 305,000 consumers participate in the own, partner and guest events of the NürnbergMesse Group, which is present with subsidiaries in China, North America, Brazil and Italy. The group also has a network of 55 representatives operating in more than 80 countries.
(www.ask-galabau.info-web.de)
