Many enjoyed a fantastic time at Light & Building in Frankfurt, the first “back to normal” fair after Covid. We reconnected with our friends in the industry, saw new faces familiar places and vice verse familiar faces in new locations, but we quickly got readjusted to the new hall configurations. Not as fully occupied as before Covid, with some obvious empty spaces, but overall the vibe was back (I cant compare to 2022 as I was not there) but compared to 2018, it definitely felt reenergised!  

The booth parties, were back and many went to great length to make their booth as welcoming and interesting as possible. New was the Design Plaza, a concept pioneered by Messe Frankfurt’s sister company Light and Intelligent Building Middle East, were a small arena hosted some key note speakers and events. Overall there was nothing really revolutionary other then continuing the trend of miniaturisation, smarter (wireless) controls and an obvious push towards more sustainable and environmentally friendly lighting systems. The commercial under tone of the messaging was obvious, but in essence using lesser materials, complying with TM 66 guidelines, circularity, maximising efficiency, better quality, in short more value for money (not for us end users alone, but the planet in general as well).

The commercial drive of the sales pitches still needs a lot of scrutiny and the lighting design community should certainly not take all these approaches at face value and I herewith invite the manufacturers to be more open and specific about material use, light measurement versus efficiencies claimed and so on. We are happy to carry the messaging to our client, but we need to be fully informed and be able to take claims to the bank! Please add your comments below, to start a discussion!    

In the end the fairy tale dream of a great and successful event got seriously shattered by the Lufthansa strike. With the Icelandic volcano flight disruptions still fresh any many of our minds, this very much felt like “deja vue”. Many scrambled to find alternative transportation, me included, some having to fork out serious money for extra hotel nights, re-bookings and so on. I have meanwhile reached the Netherlands using a door to door car transfer service, slightly more expensive that my original flight ticket from Frankfurt to Amsterdam, so I hope the refund (and maybe compensation) will cover for the extra costs. I won’t need to go through Frankfurt/ Germany on my way back, but with more strikes planned in the coming week some of you might still be affected. Please do share your travel back stories, love to hear how you made it back safely!