Successful Double Trade Fair Dealing with All Aspects of Earthquake-Proof Planning and Building
Foto: Successful Double Trade Fair Dealing with All Aspects of Earthquake-Proof Planning and Building
Positive Feedback for Seismic Safety and INTERGEO EurasiaTurkey has a new platform for earthquake-proof planning and building. The trade fair duo of Seismic Safety and INTERGEO Eurasia received excellent feedback from exhibitors and visitors at its premier in Istanbul on 28 and 29 April. Unanimous opinion: The project has a bright future! A total of 1,550 visitors from 26 countries were registered on the two trade fair days. The majority of the visitors came from Turkey, Germany, Italy, China and Japan.
In the WOW Convention Center in Istanbul, 90 companies exhibited from 14 countries in a region, which has suffered repeatedly from severe earthquakes and seismic natural disasters in the past. Thanks to the combination of both trade fairs, the complete process chain of earthquake-proof planning could be depicted: from data collection to analysis of the building land and all the way to selection of appropriate construction materials and techniques. While Seismic Safety focused on earthquake protection, fire protection and urban renewal, INTERGEO Eurasia dealt with the topics of surveying, geoinformation, remote exploration and photogrammetry. The organizer of Seismic Safety and INTERGEO Eurasia is MMI Eurasia, the subsidiary of Messe München in Turkey, in collaboration with Messe München International (MMI) and Hinte Messe- und Ausstellungs-GmbH, Karlsruhe, Germany.
The exhibitors above all praised the good organization, the high degree of internationalism of visitors as well as the supporting program composed of the INTERGEO Congress and Seismic Talks. Many exhibitors have already promised to participate in the next event in two years. "It certainly makes sense to bring the two events together here in Istanbul. We also want to use this platform again in 2016," Johannes Woellner explained, Application Engineer at Leica Geosystems AG. Stephan Obexer, representative of Binderholz GmbH, sees a good platform in Seismic Safety "to present timber construction products and reduce skepticism concerning timber construction." Oliver Schmidt, International Sales Director at Nedo GmbH & Co.KG, believes that the double trade fair has good perspectives: "The trade fair was a success and well organized and the trade fair site was chosen correctly. We were able to get good insights into the market."
The exhibitors from Turkey were also satisfied. "Our expectations were fulfilled," Mustafa Kanışık, President of Sistem A.Ş., summarized. Above all, the congress program was very convincing. Eren Kalafat, President of Ulus Yapı, emphasized that the double trade fair would have an important function when it is a question of defining the market for technologies for preventing seismic natural disasters in the first place.
The organizers of the double trade fair drew a positive conclusion, above all Klaus Dittrich, Chief Executive Officer of Messe München International: "We have organized a trade fair in Turkey for the first time with Seismic Safety and INTERGEO Eurasia. I am very pleased that this premier event had such a tremendous response right from its start. Given the explosiveness of the earthquake protection topic in Turkey and the whole region, Seismic Safety will certainly become established as an important platform for technology and sharing knowledge. I would like to thank all those involved for their support and dedication, especially our exhibitors and our subsidiary MMI Eurasia."
On the side of MMI Eurasia, Managing Director Tolga Özkarakas was also very pleased with the initial event: "I would especially like to thank all of our exhibitors who made this success at all possible with their participation. Their feedback is now the basis for us to enhance the trade fair concept together with our exhibitors. We are looking forward to the next event in Istanbul in 2016."
OIaf Freier, Managing Director of Hinte GmbH, who worked out the concept and was responsible for international exhibitor acquisition, sees substantial development potential at the Istanbul site. "The novel concept to bring important current and future topics together in an interdisciplinary way with INTERGEO Eurasia and Seismic Safety generated positive feedback. Now it is a matter of evaluating this carefully with the exhibitors and professional partners and developing it consistently and optimally further. Istanbul will also remain a strategically important site for the international geo-community in the future."
In addition to the presentations of the exhibitors, there were talks and panel discussions with experts from Germany and Turkey within the context of Seismic Talks and the INTERGEO Eurasia Congress. Seismic Talks were conceived as an interdisciplinary exchange and dialog between architects, geographers, sociologists and other experts. Architects from Turkey introduced solutions using examples from actual practice for earthquake-proof planning and new buildings as well as for retrofitting existing buildings. Then the results of a round table discussion not open to the public were presented to those at the trade fair and discussed with the trade fair visitors. At the INTERGEO Eurasia Congress, experts presented trends and innovations dealing with all aspects of surveying and geoinformation. The synergies and overlapping points of Seismic Safety and INTERGEO Eurasia were emphasized in a joint session.
Seismic Talks were conceived by the architecture magazine DETAIL. Project Manager Kathrin Wiblishauser summarized her impressions as follows: "We as organizers of Seismic Talks – the supporting program of Seismic Safety – were thrilled by its encouraging reception by visitors. The participants, internationally renowned speakers, above all appreciate the synergies of the interdisciplinary exchange. Thanks to the discussion covering a wide variety of topics, new and innovative approaches to the topic of earthquake protection in Turkey could be developed. We are already looking forward to the next event in Istanbul in 2016."
Prof. Dr. Rahmi Nurhan Çelik, ITU University, Director and Organizer of the INTERGEO Eurasia congress, was very pleased at its good reception and popularity: "We were able to welcome many important people, including representatives of ministries and public agencies. Our partner organizations were there each with their chairpersons or deputies. Both speakers and congress audience were of an extremely high quality."
Captions:
Ribbon Cutting: traditional Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at the beginning of Seismic Safety and Intergeo Eurasia. To the right: Tolga Özkarakas, CEO MMI Eurasia, next to him Klaus Dittrich, CEO Messe München International.
Earthquake simulator: Presentation of an earthquake simulator at Seismic Safety
Additional informations:
www.seismics-safety.net
www.intergeo-eurasia.net
