PMRExpo Continues to Grow

“PMRExpo – the place to be!” This was how North Rhine‐Westphalia’s State Minister for Internal Affairs, Herbert Reul opened this year’s PMRExpo. His words came to fruition quite impressively: 4,400 visitors and 232 exhibitors, including 73 global companies, attended the leading European trade fair for secure communications over the course of three days from 27 to 29 November at the Cologne Exhibition Grounds. As such, the global expert network for secure communications grew even more in 2018. Users and providers of security‐critical communications systems from Germany, Europe and the rest of the world got together to forge excellent business relationships and hold technical discussions at PMRExpo 2018.

“Leads from Iceland to Turkey”

This year’s exhibitors benefited from the growth and internationalisation of the expert network of PMRExpo: “Both qualitatively and quantitatively, the leads we gained at PMRExpo 2018 surpasses all previous years. And the leads spanned the globe, from Iceland to Turkey.

“PMRExpo was a great success. For another year running, we spoke with significantly more customers and partners than at the previous year’s event. On top of this, PMRExpo is almost like a family meeting for the industries, with many familiar faces and discussions with customers about market developments as well as day-to-day business. We’ve also had many international customers and colleagues at our stand, but it goes without saying that our main focus is on the German market. Nonetheless, we have gained more international customers.” said Axel Kukuk, Director Key Account Management, Motorola Solutions Germany GmbH, Berlin

An increasing number of young companies are recognising the opportunities presented by the global network and thus contributing to the growth of PMRExpo: “Founded in 2015 as the German subsidiary of an American company, we are still very young.

"We’re attending PMRExpo for the first time this year to establish relationships and meet new and interesting contacts. The trade fair was the ideal platform for this. We are very pleased,” says Nick Kirstan of RAM Mounts Germany GmbH.

Diverse industries

In addition to its continuous internationalisation in recent years, PMRExpo has also managed to draw in more and more representatives from energy providers, transport companies and classic industrial fields on top of the usual visitors from the security and emergency services. Christopher Bick of stashcat/heinekingmedia gmbH confirmed this development: “This was our third year running at PMRExpo. For us it’s the perfect platform. The quantity and quality of visitors were exceptional once again in 2018! As well as security services, PMRExpo is reaching more and more energy providers,
airports and other companies.” Thomas Sartorius of Holmberg GmbH & Co. KG has also noticed this.

Trends, concepts and scenarios of the future

For the first time, the diverse talk programme took the form of the Secure Communications Summit, which was centred around the topic of control centres on the last day. The challenges, trends, concepts and scenarios of the future were comprehensively presented and discussed in all event formats, whether at the Secure Communications Summit, expert forums or the expert conference “Secure communications for the energy industry”. Themes included the future of security‐critical communications, secure communications in various user industries, the future of new 5G technology, hybrid networks and LTE, BOS digital radio of today and tomorrow, broadband applications for indoor radio systems and the IT security situation in critical infrastructures.

Open to all visitors, the seven expert forums in the trade fair hall attracted a large audience and many speakers from Germany and abroad once again in 2018: the DMR Forum, International BOS Forum, Energy Industry Forum, Building Radio Forum, Specialist Trade Forum, Mission Critical Forum and Career Forum were held in front of a new spectators’ stand, which went down very well with the audience.

“Connecting Area” meeting point

Visitors were also happy about the increased event area at PMRExpo 2018. The 4,700 m2 of exhibition space in trade fair hall 10.2 were fully utilised for the first time ever. This is because many exhibitors increased the size of their stalls, which speaks for the growing importance of PMRExpo. In addition, organiser EW Medien und Kongresse provided a spacious, comfortable and modern‐looking “Connecting Area” where visitors, exhibitors, experts and speakers had the chance to talk, relax and grow their networks among the emergency services vehicles on display. This new feature was wonderfully received.