LightCon postponed to June 2021

Everything should fit for the opening event of the LightCon. That would have worked in June - if the corona virus hadn't intervened. In the meantime, numerous trade fairs have been moved from spring to early summer, so that there is a tight schedule around the premiere date of LightCon. In addition, the current planning uncertainty among companies is making the preparation of trade fairs more difficult. Against this backdrop, the organisers have decided that the new platform for lightweight construction across materials and technologies will only be launched next year in Hanover from 23 to 24 June 2021.

"The anticipation for LightCon is huge - among the speakers, among the partners and last but not least among us," says Maria Christina Mihm, LightCon Project Manager at Deutsche Messe AG. "Postponing the premiere to June 2021 was therefore not easy for us. However, in view of other events that are now exceptionally held in May or July, this step was without alternative. The trade show calendar must make sense for the entire market." Among other things, HANNOVER MESSE has been moved from April to July. From July 13 to 17, lightweight construction will once again be a key theme at the world's leading trade show for industry - not only in the exhibition, but also at the 2nd Lightweighting Summit of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy.

As Mihm explains, "Our partners support the decision to postpone the first edition of LightCon and the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology will of course remain with us as patron for the start of LightCon in 2021. "The tailwind we are getting for LightCon is extraordinary. The bottom line is that we now see it as a chance to turn the good preparation for this year into an even better one for the coming year".

This is also confirmed by Dr. Gunnar Merz, CEO of Composites United: "Of course we all would have liked the situation to be different. But when such a situation arises, as is now the case as a result of the corona virus, which also affects our designated partner country South Korea, then it is important to make prudent and sensible decisions. We have done this by postponing the LightCon premiere to June 2021. The market wanted the LightCon to take place in June and it will stay that way. But now one year later." Composites United is one of the world's largest networks for fibre-based multi-material lightweight construction and a founding partner of LightCon.

LightCon will be a platform for all lightweight construction solutions - for competing materials and processes, as well as for hybrid solutions and constructive lightweight construction. The new congress trade fair sees itself as a marketplace for competition as well as a high-quality contact exchange for forging new ideas, partnerships and networks.

Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier is patron of LightCon. Other partners of the congress trade fair are Berlin Partner, C³ carbon concrete composite, the Federal Association of the German Foundry Industry, the Massive Forming Industry Association, the International Magnesium Association, the Lightweight Construction Interest Group (igeL), the Landshut Lightweight Construction Cluster, the VDEh Steel Association, Mobility goes Additive, the NanoMikroWerkstoffePhotonik.NRW cluster, Neue Materialien Fürth GmbH and the Nanotechnology and New Materials (bayern innovativ) clusters.

Source and graphic: Deutsche Messe AG