Hannover. 2020 was supposed to be the year of INTERSCHUTZ. Now things have changed. With a week of INTERSCHUTZ online, the organizers at Deutsche Messe are now inviting visitors to gather, at least virtually, under the umbrella of INTERSCHUTZ. "We hope that as many INTERSCHUTZ visitors and fans as possible will take advantage of this opportunity to view and share our online contributions and, of course, to post their own stories or pictures," says Martin Folkerts, INTERSCHUTZ Project Manager in the Deutsche Messe team. Facebook, Instagram and the INTERSCHUTZ website - these are the three channels used to disseminate news, stories and entertainment relating to INTERSCHUTZ. The focus here is on emotions as well as on real innovations. "It's clear that not all of the innovations that were supposed to be presented at INTERSCHUTZ in 2020 will now remain behind closed doors until 2021," says Folkerts. "Some news have to go out now. But we can already say today that INTERSCHUTZ 2021 will be a trade fair that is as strong as it is innovative".

Behind the scenes, the team is preparing everything necessary to launch a successful world-leading trade fair for fire and rescue services, civil protection, safety and security in Hanover in June 2021. The aim is to adopt most of the very well advanced plans set out in 2020 for 2021. And things look good: Almost three quarters of the companies have already confirmed that they want to have their booth in 2021 exactly where they would have presented in 2020. Discussions are underway with the others and also new potential exhibitors. The planned industry meetings on rescue and civil protection, preventive fire protection, hygiene and digitalisation will continue to take place and almost all of the events in the supporting programme will be held in Hannover in 2021. In addition, the three partner country days with Italy, France and the USA will remain.

The topic setting will definitely be different: Combating pandemics is one of the core topics of INTERSCHUTZ anyway. However, the real case of a pandemic, which the world is currently experiencing, will also have an impact on the agenda of INTERSCHUTZ 2021. The coronavirus pandemic will play an important role at many of the exhibitors' stands as well as in conferences and symposia.

It will not be all about corona either. The main theme of INTERSCHUTZ will continue to be "Teams, Tactics, Technology – Connected for Protection and Rescue", in other words, the opportunities and benefits of digital technologies in cooperation between the players involved in protection and rescue. This can apply to a pandemic, but also to all other deployment scenarios, organizational structures, vehicle equipment and gear.

Folkerts: "Although the corona pandemic was a damper, we are counting on the fact that INTERSCHUTZ 2021 will then be even more important to revive business and the economy and to discuss the most important future issues facing our industries".