Demonstration trade fair in Karlsruhe to feature three new special theme areas in 2021

RecyclingAKTIV & TiefbauLIVE will provide a platform for e-mobility in compact construction, gardening and landscaping

RecyclingAKTIV & TiefbauLIVE, the demonstration trade fair for waste removal and recycling & road construction and civil engineering, will be the only exhibition in 2021 to combine the construction and recycling industries in a single event. This will enable direct communication between providers, customers and market peers. Manufacturers, dealers and service providers from both sectors will present their machinery, systems and services at the Karlsruhe Trade Fair Centre from 10 to 12 June. The event in 2021 will also see a number of new features, including a cross-industry attachment-arena. There will also be demonstration building sites for e-mobility in compact construction, gardening and landscaping as well as for special civil engineering. Here, RecyclingAKTIV & TiefbauLIVE will provide these three product groups with a platform that will offer an unprecedented level of action and intensity.

Three quarters of outdoor exhibition area already booked

The trade fair duo will present systems for handling, processing and removing valuable materials like wood, metal and construction waste at all levels. The event will also combine these products with the machinery and systems from the world of civil engineering, including road and conduit construction, compact construction, gardening, landscaping and digitalisation. “59 per cent of our visitors are interested in both RecyclingAKTIV and TiefbauLIVE. The incredible level of interest from exhibitors confirms the success of this combination. 75 per cent of the outdoor exhibition area is already booked, with most of the remaining stand spaces reserved through options. This is incredible given the current situation and the fact that we still have ten months to go before the event”, explains project manager Olivia Kollmer. “As a result, we have had to expand our outdoor exhibition area by 10,000 square metres.” Among the exhibitors will be some companies showcasing their products for the first time, such as Kopp Baumaschinen and Avant Tecno. Those returning to the event will include names like Schlüter, Zeppelin, Ammann, Epiroc, Wacker Neuson and Holp, as well as Doppstadt and Arjes.

New attachments arena to present tools from recycling and civil engineering

The new attachments arena will offer visitors three topic-related tours per day. These will showcase tools from the recycling and civil engineering sectors, such as bucket screeners, demolition and hydraulic hammers, attached compactors, grippers and various kinds of shovel blade, all presented in an action-packed show that lets visitors judge the products for themselves. “Presentations of attachments have always been a major part of our event. But until now, manufacturers have done so largely in static exhibitions at their stands”, says Kollmer. “The new attachments arena is our response to the demand among exhibitors for demonstration options. It will also combine the recycling and civil engineering industries together in a single tool platform that promises to be full of action. This means that RecyclingAKTIV and TiefbauLIVE will feature even more live demonstrations.” The driver of the construction vehicle decouples the various attachments by means of a fully hydraulic quick coupler system, before demonstrating their abilities and robustness in a realistic live show. Here, the attachments will be compared either directly as in a real arena, or working together as they would in a construction process. While this is going on, an expert presenter will be joined by a representative of the exhibiting company to explain the attachments’ features and applications.

Special civil engineering added due to high demand

The exhibitor survey from the last trade fair in 2019 showed particularly high interest in solutions and innovations in special civil engineering. That is why the organisers are planning a dedicated demonstration building site that will feature massive drilling machines and suction excavators, as well as smaller pieces of equipment like excavator-mounted pile drivers, all shown in action separately. As a result, the demonstration building site for road and path construction will take a break in 2021. “Road construction will remain a major focus of our event, and will be represented at many of our exhibitors’ stands. The same is true of path construction, which we plan to integrate into the new demonstration building site for e-mobility in compact construction, gardening and landscaping”, explains Kollmer.

Sector focused on e-mobility in compact construction

As well as their own stands, exhibitors can take part in the special theme areas. The outdoor exhibition area offers 90,000 square metres of exhibition space for static product presentations or live demonstrations at the stands. Alongside this, there will be additional space in the air-conditioned hall area located next to the visitor entrance. The neighbouring Atrium will be the venue for the demonstration building site e-mobility in compact construction, gardening and landscaping. This will feature live demonstrations of processes like earth transport, compaction and path construction across six different construction areas, in order to showcase the benefits of electrically driven machinery in urban projects.

The demonstration building site for conduit construction will return next year, as will the two special theme areas for recycling, which focus on wood and biomass and scrap and metal respectively. Frank Jülicher, authorised representative at Anton Küpper Baumeister Hoch- Tiefbau GmbH & Co. KG, visited these in 2019 as he was searching for a new crushing system. “I wanted to use the trade fair to find out about the various options, like crusher attachments or tracked crushers. The event gave us an overview that was smaller than that at bauma but still very comprehensive. I like the size of the trade fair. From a customer’s perspective, the demonstrations give you a much better idea of how the systems work and what they are capable of”, explains the expert from Erkelenz in north-west Germany.

Dealing with coronavirus

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the economic importance of trade fairs as a meeting point and marketplace. Personal contact and the ability to view and compare products up close is essential for purchasing decisions and for building up industry knowledge. As the organiser of RecyclingAKTIV & TiefbauLIVE, Messe Karlsruhe assumes that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic will continue to affect aspects of trade fair activities in 2021. This will not affect the design of the demonstration trade fair, however, even if regulations like compulsory mask wearing, limits to visitor numbers, mandatory routes or contact tracing are still in force at the time of the event.