Emotional Event Design. Made in Germany.
Close
Servicebroker GmbH · Corporate event agency in Munich since 1999
The trade fair is your stage. The rest is our job.
For exhibitors at the eleven leading trade fairs at Messe München. Hotel allotments from 50 guests, evenings for 100 to 1,000 guests. Event logistics for trade fairs, from a single source.
Who we are
Servicebroker GmbH is an owner- and family-run corporate event agency in Munich-Haidhausen, founded in 1999. For exhibitors at the eleven leading trade fairs at Messe München — BAU, bauma, drinktec, electronica, EXPO REAL, IAA Mobility, iba, IFAT, Intersolar Europe, productronica and transport logistic — Servicebroker purchases hotel allotments from 50 guests, manages contracts, handles venue sourcing and organises trade fair side events for 100 to 1,000 guests.
Servicebroker is the operational service partner to trade fair exhibitors for everything outside the stand. Your single point of contact for accommodation, venue and evening.
We do not build stands. That is for specialists. No individual hotel bookings — you will find those online. Everything else from a single source.
01 · Services
You are not looking for two service providers — one for hotels and one for the trade fair evening. Servicebroker handles both.
From 50 guests
Research, enquiry, negotiation, allotment and contract management. Minimum stay, cancellation terms and allotment size. Distributed across several hotels if required.
Your result: rooms no portal lists — and contracts that reduce your risk.
Enquire about a hotel allotment100 to 1,000 guests
Evening events, customer events, social programmes, pre- and post-event programmes before and after trade fair week. Venue sourcing, catering, technical production, programme and direction. Also venues the public cannot book. Event logistics for trade fairs included.
Your result: an evening your guests will remember — and no budget wasted on frills.
Plan an evening eventDestination Management (DMC)
The international term for this is Destination Management (DMC). In Munich, that is us — local knowledge, tips and tricks for the city, group mobility — analysis, agenda, planning, safety, implementation — interpreters, guides, official matters and direction on site.
Your result: your guests move around Munich as if they had been here before.
Enquire about MunichFor all services: one contract, one invoice, one point of responsibility. One construction site instead of ten.
Trade fair exhibitors in Munich · hotel allotments from 50 guests · evenings for 100 to 1,000 guests · one point of contact.
02 · Scope
We say it early because it saves you time.
| Your task | Who handles it |
|---|---|
| Stand, stand construction, stand personnel | Your stand builder. |
| Brand staging, campaign, trade fair appearance as a communications concept | shoota.de — our cooperation partner for the big show. We make the introduction. |
| Digital media design for trade fair stand and stage | digga.live — our joint-venture partner. We make the introduction. |
| Pure room sourcing for individual travellers and groups under 50 guests | The internet and AI. Hotel portals and corporate rates are cheaper there. |
| First orientation on Munich as a location | The Munich Convention Bureau — free and neutral. |
| Congress with its own registration and speaker management | A congress organiser. |
03 · Evidence
Five figures, all with publisher, year and sample size. Verifiable.
64.1%
of German exhibitors name rising costs as their biggest challenge.
AUMA Exhibitor Outlook 2026/2027, 400 exhibiting companies, November 2025.
Servicebroker negotiates, bundles volume and checks the contracts.
61.5%
61.5 versus 62.3 per cent. That is how close accommodation and stand construction budgets lie.
Reasons for extra spending, named by the 35 per cent of exhibitors with rising budgets. AUMA Exhibitor Outlook 2025/2026.
Your stand builders are professionals. For group hotels and events, there is Servicebroker.
46%
of exhibitors name visitor acquisition as one of their biggest challenges.
AUMA Exhibitor Outlook 2025/2026, 400 companies.
Anyone who wants to bring people to the stand needs a reason that goes beyond the stand itself.
5.5%
of all first contacts at a live event become serious prospects — a higher rate than any other channel.
HockeyStack, State of Event Marketing 2025. Transaction data from 198 B2B companies and 2.6 million deals.
Most often, that reason is the invitation to the evening.
41%
of conference hotels cannot cover their staffing needs. Across all venues, it is 34 per cent.
Meeting & Event Barometer 2023/24, 620 organisers.
That is why enquiries for trade fair week go unanswered. We deliver answers.
04 · Your Week
Six tasks to complete between two appointments. Who handles them?
Most trade fair budgets flow into stand construction. Right behind it: accommodation and overnight stays, 61.5 per cent. Both named by exhibitors increasing their budget — AUMA 2025/2026.
A specialist company handles the stand build. The hotel rooms you wrestle with yourself. Between two appointments, in a market you enter five times a year and your counterpart enters every day.
Servicebroker negotiates group allotments from 50 guests and bundles volume across several customers. Above all, Servicebroker reads the contracts. The cost lever is rarely in the rate. It lies in the minimum stay, in the cancellation terms and in the question of how large the allotment needs to be in the first place.
You write to fifteen hotels. Four reply. And quote four times the normal rate.
That is not bad manners. 41 per cent of conference hotels cannot cover their staffing needs. A hotel with ten enquiries a day and too few staff answers the ones it knows first.
Servicebroker has been in these hotels since 1999. Not as a sender in an inbox, but as recurring volume and as colleagues you know. That is why we get answers. And that is why we reach rooms no portal lists.
You need a venue for 200 guests on the Tuesday evening of trade fair week. What is good is booked. What is free does not fit your brand.
Servicebroker has worked in Munich since 1999. We know the venues that are not in any database: a former public convenience — a loo. A Jugendstil market hall. The Bauhaus cultural centre. A canteen in the Schlachthofviertel. A museum rooftop. And the lake in the middle of the enchanted forest outside the city gates.
Not "we will find something". Rather: we know what fits.
Hotel, coach, venue, catering, technical production, music, hostesses, interpreters, photographer, social programme. Each with their own invoice, own terms and conditions, own point of contact. And they all call you. Months before the trade fair, in the middle of your day-to-day business.
With us, it is one. One contract, one invoice, one point of responsibility.
When the coach is stuck in traffic, the question is no longer "who is responsible". It is only "what is the alternative". We already know that before you ask.
Five to fifteen trade fairs a year, managed by one to three people — alongside day-to-day business.
That is not a question of ability. You are good at your job. You simply do not have eight hours for hotel negotiations and three days for venue visits.
That is why research goes to us and the decision stays with you. You gain time for your essential tasks, such as strategy and communications.
Three quotes. Three scopes. Zero comparability.
Indirect-spend procurement asks for a price comparison, and you are comparing apples with oranges. One includes staff in the flat rate, the next bills it separately, the third not at all.
Servicebroker calculates line by line. Every item individually, every item comparable. And for your procurement, we are one contractual partner under German law instead of ten creditors.
05 · Dates
And with it the lead time you need. The longer the cycle, the harder the squeeze.
| Trade fair | Next date | Cycle | Lead time |
|---|---|---|---|
| BAU | 11–15 January 2027 | every 2 years | 12–18 months |
| iba | 24–28 October 2027 | every 3 years · 2027 deviating after 2 years | 12–18 months |
| IAA Mobility | 7–12 September 2027 | every 2 years | 12–18 months |
| bauma | 3–9 April 2028 | every 3 years | 18–24 months |
| drinktec | 11–15 September 2028 | 3–4 years | 18–24 months |
| IFAT | 29 May–1 June 2028 | every 2 years | 12–18 months |
| EXPO REAL | 5–7 October 2026 | annual | 9–12 months |
| electronica | 10–13 November 2026 | every 2 years | 12–18 months |
| Intersolar Europe | 8–10 June 2027 | annual | 9–12 months |
| productronica | 16–19 November 2027 | every 2 years | 12–18 months |
| transport logistic | 26–29 April 2027 | every 2 years | 12–18 months |
Status: August 2026. Date status 12.08.2026. Primarily verified with the organiser: BAU, iba, IFAT, drinktec, EXPO REAL, transport logistic. Verified via official or specialist sources: IAA Mobility, Intersolar Europe. Only secondarily verified and to be double-checked before go-live: electronica 2026, productronica 2027, bauma 2028.
Search once for "trade fair planning". You will find stand design, stand rent per square metre, technical registration, staff planning for the stand team, transport of exhibits.
What you will not find: where your 200 guests sleep, how they get to the hall and what happens on Tuesday evening.
06 · The Eleven Trade Fairs
Every trade fair has its own procurement situation. Jump to yours.
11 to 15 January 2027
For BAU, the entire construction value chain comes to Munich: manufacturers of building materials and systems, plus architecture practices, planners and trades as the audience. In 2025 there were 2,230 exhibitors from 58 countries and over 180,000 visitors.
Servicebroker plans evening events for BAU as indoor events and allows wider time windows for arrival and departure. The reason is the January date. Anyone moving 300 guests in January plans for snowfall and darkness from half past four. The most beautiful rooftop terrace is useless at two degrees. And the walk from the stop to the door should be dry.
3 to 9 April 2028
bauma is the world's largest trade fair by area: construction machinery, building material machinery, mining equipment. In 2025, 3,601 exhibitors from 57 nations and around 600,000 visitors from over 200 countries came.
Servicebroker secures allotments for bauma 18 to 24 months ahead and plans arrival from the surrounding area at the same time. Three years of pent-up demand hit here in seven days — that is the toughest procurement situation in the Munich trade fair calendar, and for large bauma editions hotel occupancy reaches as far as Augsburg and Ingolstadt. Anyone who enquires only twelve months ahead is no longer negotiating the rate. They take what is left.
11 to 15 September 2028
drinktec gathers the beverage and liquid-food industry: breweries, bottlers, plant manufacturers, suppliers. In 2025 there were 1,117 exhibitors from 68 countries. Few exhibitors, many nations.
The organiser has shortened the cycle: after 2025, the next edition follows in 2028, i.e. after three instead of four years. For you, that means lead time begins a year earlier than usual.
Servicebroker plans the beverage dramaturgy for drinktec first and the menu afterwards. This trade fair sets a requirement that no other sets: your guests are beverage professionals, and they notice generic catering immediately. So we work with breweries and winemakers who can explain what is in the glass. To an audience that tastes the difference.
10 to 13 November 2026
electronica is the world's leading trade fair for electronics: components, systems, applications. In 2024 there were over 3,480 exhibitors and over 80,000 specialist visitors — the second-largest exhibitor field in Munich after bauma.
The exhibitor count creates the bottleneck: over three thousand companies are looking for the same evening venues in the same week.
Servicebroker books for electronica earlier than for comparable spring trade fairs. The reason is a competition many overlook: in November, city-centre hotels are in Christmas business and venues are filled with corporate Christmas parties. Anyone wanting an evening in November competes not only with other exhibitors but with half of Munich's Mittelstand.
5 to 7 October 2026
EXPO REAL brings together the European real-estate industry: project developers, investors, cities and regions, consultants. In 2025 there were 1,742 exhibitors and around 42,000 real-estate professionals. It is the only Munich leading trade fair with an annual cycle.
Here, business is explicitly not done at the stand but in private suites, at dinners and at the bar. The need for rooms for confidential conversations is higher than at any other trade fair.
Servicebroker negotiates for EXPO REAL allotments and meeting rooms as a package in principle — and begins a year ahead. Because EXPO REAL traditionally lies immediately after Oktoberfest. In 2026 the Wiesn ends on 4 October, the trade fair begins on 5. Munich hotel rates get not a single day of recovery in between — anyone enquiring late here negotiates against two major events at once.
7 to 12 September 2027
IAA Mobility is spread across two locations: the specialist trade fair at the Messe München grounds in Riem and the public Open Space in the city centre. In 2025 there were almost 750 exhibitors from 37 countries and over 500,000 visitors.
Servicebroker places accommodation for IAA Mobility along the axis between both locations and times routes to the Open Space programme, not to hall opening hours. Many people, few exhibitors — because the larger part of the audience is out in the city, not in the hall. Your guests move between Riem and the city centre, and anyone planning only for Riem loses them for half a day on public transport.
24 to 28 October 2027
iba is the world's leading trade fair for bakery, confectionery and snacks. Exhibitors are plant manufacturers, raw material producers and equipment suppliers; the audience comes from craft and industry.
Two things you need to know here. First: iba 2025 took place in Düsseldorf. In 2027 it returns to Munich. Anyone who exhibited there in 2025 plans 2027 against a hotel market they do not know. And the October date in Munich falls in the same month as EXPO REAL.
Servicebroker plans evening events for iba earlier and ends them earlier than at industrial trade fairs. Because the audience is predominantly owner-managed craft: businesses that get up early and do not party until two. Culinary-wise, we work here with small regional producers rather than large caterers. Anyone serving bakers a dessert should be able to say who it comes from.
29 May to 1 June 2028
IFAT is the world's largest trade fair for environmental technologies: water, wastewater, waste, raw materials. In 2026 there were around 3,400 exhibitors from over 60 countries. It is one of the trade fairs with the strongest impact on the Munich hotel market.
Servicebroker plans the evening for IFAT exhibitors down to seating plans, with interpreters at the table rather than on stage. What is special is the composition of the audience: alongside industry, municipal representatives and official delegations from all over the world travel here — often in groups, often with interpreting needs, often with protocol expectations. Anyone who only books rooms here has completed half the task.
8 to 10 June 2027
Intersolar Europe is the leading trade fair of the solar industry and part of The smarter E Europe.
Servicebroker carries out a post-event review for recurring Intersolar exhibitors and plans the following year on that basis. The annual cycle is an advantage few use: you can learn from the previous year. What worked, who came, which venue was too small?
The June date also brings back the option missing in winter: evenings outdoors, by the water, in the green.
16 to 19 November 2027
productronica is the world's leading trade fair for electronics manufacturing: machinery, processes, automation. In 2025 there were over 1,600 exhibitors from 52 countries. It alternates with electronica.
Anyone planning for productronica should know what was booked for electronica the year before. Servicebroker maintains this overview anyway. Because Munich has a major electronics trade fair every November. For hotels, the November date has long been priced in, and the good venues are the same for both trade fairs.
26 to 29 April 2027
transport logistic is the world's largest trade fair for logistics and supply chain management. In 2025 there were 2,722 exhibitors from 73 nations, 65 per cent from abroad, and over 77,000 visitors from more than 130 countries.
Servicebroker brought 400 international guests to a lake in the forest outside the city for a cargo airline at transport logistic 2025 — fine dining, fashion show and, in pouring rain, the Isarnixen. Two thirds of exhibitors here come from abroad, and their guests too. That shifts the task: less hotel search, more hospitality for people who do not know Munich.
The transport logistic showcase is further down this page. Your trade fair not listed? Call anyway.
We work Germany-wide, and the eleven are our focus, not our limit.
07 · Enquiries
This is what the enquiries that reach us sound like.
250 guests for bauma — hotel allotment, mobility from the surrounding area, evening event.
International guests for IFAT — allotment, airport pick-up, interpreters at the evening, seating plan at dinner.
Customer event for EXPO REAL — allotment, meeting rooms, dinner in a confidential setting.
150 customers for electronica — hotel allotment and an evening venue no one expects.
400 international guests for transport logistic — hotel, mobility, evening event with its own dramaturgy.
08 · Showcase
| Trade fair | transport logistic 2025, Messe München |
|---|---|
| Client | internationally active cargo airline |
| Guests | 400, international |
| Services | venue sourcing, exclusive booking, catering, technical production, programme, direction, mobility |
| Special feature | Rain — and a performance not on the running order |
An enchanted forest outside Munich. Inside it, a lake.
For the world's leading trade fair transport logistic 2025, Servicebroker staged a trade fair side event dinner at a secret location. Client: an internationally active cargo airline. 400 international guests. Fine dining, music, dance and a fashion show asking: what could our brand fashion look like in the future?
Then the rain came. And with it the Isarnixen — Munich's legendary synchronised swimmers — who emerged from the lake and swam their routine.
No one had expected it. No one has forgotten it.
Standards are the valerian of event management. Have the courage to create innovative events that tell stories. Events that win hearts.
Dominik Markoč, Managing Director, Servicebroker GmbH
Valerian: a herbal sedative.
09 · Showcases
All trade fair side events for exhibitors at Munich leading trade fairs.
BAU 2023 · 650 guests
Servicebroker designed an exhibitor's anniversary at BAU 2023 in Munich for 650 guests.
Fifty years of expertise, shared stories and successes — we designed our client's anniversary as a celebration of connectedness. As a corporate event agency, we created an experience that invited everyone in: from committed team member to international business partner, each became part of an inspiring story.
That the anniversary fell during trade fair week was no coincidence. The partners were already in town.
BAU 2023 · 150 guests
Servicebroker led 150 partners of a world market leader in access control on a sightseeing tour through Munich at BAU 2023. The destination: a fine-dining restaurant.
But the coach drivers got lost, the guides lost their bearings, and the guests unexpectedly ended up in the not-at-all-fine Schlachthofviertel. Barracks, sausage-casing wholesalers, knife grinders. And then those two graffiti artists spraying a large piece onto a wall — surely illegal!
The two turned out to be exceedingly friendly and directed the group to one of Munich's finest Italian restaurants. There the guests were pampered with culinary and musical dolce vita.
Proud as punch, we are, that the graffiti now hangs in our client's foyer. "You Matter!" it calls out to viewers, painted on coarse OSB boards from the building trade.
transport logistic 2023 · 230 guests
Servicebroker hosted the after-show party of an airline at transport logistic 2023 in Munich for 230 guests. Theme: transatlantic business relations and the potential of future cooperation.
A leap in time to the Golden Twenties. The era of economic upswing, innovation and internationality, of cultural blossoming. Burlesque artistes, swing musicians and dancers. Original and elaborately restored film and photo sequences from the Twenties from the Murnau Foundation archive, staged by our visual and media designer Genelabo. And all of it garnished with culinary finesse at star level.
Trade fairs are presentation platforms for companies, their products and innovations. But let us not fool ourselves: personal relationships do not arise between companies, but between people.
Two years later the same airline was on our list again — two trade fair weeks, two completely different evenings, one client.
IFAT 2024 · 200 guests
Servicebroker hosted a dinner for 200 guests in listed industrial architecture at IFAT 2024 — the place where innovation began in Munich. Top management and most important partners at one table.
Catering regional and seasonal, prepared with much finesse, down-to-earth and refined at the same time. Animated conversations at the bar, expert talk with the barista and the beer sommelier. Casual team games break the ice. Facades fall, hierarchies too.
Here, the human being counts.
Five evenings, three leading trade fairs, 150 to 650 guests.
All in Munich, all during a trade fair week, all for exhibitors.
10 · Procurement
The showcases above show the evening. This one shows what happened before.
| Trade fair | IFAT 2024, Messe München |
|---|---|
| Requirement | 130 rooms, 12 to 17 May 2024 — arrival for the pre-night |
| Nights | 5 |
| Lead time | 16 months market research and benchmarking |
| Checked | around 40 hotels, three to four stars |
| Market price | EUR 370 to 450 during trade fair week |
| Negotiated | EUR 340 per night in a single room with breakfast |
The booked hotel was a construction site at the time of booking. Opening planned for January 2024, four months before the trade fair. A hotel in this condition has no reviews, no self-bookers and no price memory for trade fair weeks — and it needs reference groups more urgently than a good price.
The catch is obvious: opening dates slip. That is why the exit clause stood before the price. Negotiated was a withdrawal up to six months before the planned opening — in case what should be finished is not. The client carried this risk and agreed to move to a fallback hotel at around EUR 430 in the worst case.
The hotel was finished. Against a benchmark of around EUR 410, the negotiated price lay EUR 70 below — for 130 rooms and five nights, a difference of EUR 45,500.
45,500 EUR
More interesting is the other branch: four weeks before the trade fair, the same room in the same hotel cost over EUR 500. Even the worst case — EUR 430 in the fallback hotel — would have been cheaper than the market at the end. The decision was right in both outcomes.
This is not purchasing genius. It is weighing and assessing from experience, plus a cautious risk analysis together with the client. That takes time and effort. It almost always pays off.
Figures and terms from this project. Not a promise for other projects — every trade fair week and every hotel negotiates differently.
11 · Approach
More than ten years in the operational trade fair environment of Messe München: Servicebroker organised the main press conferences of leading trade fairs such as BAU, drinktec and opti, hosted the BAU briefings and looked after VIP delegations at bauma — as official service partner of Messe München. The partnership has ended. The relationships that grew from it remain.
Our clients stay for an average of more than ten years. Many over twenty. That only works if you shed your skin. Every assignment shows us something we have not seen before. That is how valuable memories are created. So we analyse needs and requirements anew every time, foster ideas no one has tried before, and do not follow trends — we prefer to trigger them ourselves.
Behind that stands a professional network that has grown since 1999: venues, hotels, kitchens, technical production, people. Its real value lies in the mix — senior-level experts who have seen everything before, and young players from culture and the creative industries who want to do things differently. From this friction arise the evenings guests still remember years later.
As designers of Emotional Event Design we belong to the wise — but still feel pretty fresh.
Dominik Markoč, Managing Director, Servicebroker GmbH
Trading on other people's names uninvited is not our style — discretion is. On request we will name references and contacts you can speak to.
12 · Budget
Almost no one in our industry writes this on a website. We do, because you need a budget before you enquire.
| Occasion | Example size | from | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staff dinner at a restaurant, not exclusive | 60 | approx. EUR 90 | three courses, simple drinks package |
| Staff or partner dinner, exclusive hire of a separate room | 100 | approx. EUR 150–400 | venue, catering, drinks |
| Staff event, venue exclusive | 200 | approx. EUR 350–700 | venue, catering, drinks |
| Customer or partner event with public impact, venue exclusive | 400 | approx. EUR 500–1,500 | venue, catering, drinks |
The range depends on the occasion, not the guest count. Depending on scope, technical production, programme, mobility and accommodation come on top. For your case, we calculate line by line, in advance.
13 · Analysis
It lies in three places hardly anyone talks about.
Minimum stay
During trade fair week, hotels regularly demand a minimum number of nights — usually from the day before to the last trade fair day. Little can be negotiated there. That is market conditions, not a negotiation result. The lever lies elsewhere: in smart distribution of volume across several clients and in simply finding the hotels that do not demand a minimum stay. You just have to know which ones they are.
Cancellation terms
That is where the money is. For trade fairs, hotels increasingly demand 15 to 20 per cent cancellation fees upon contract signature. 50 per cent is often due twelve months before arrival. Calculate: 100 rooms, five nights, EUR 480 per night — EUR 240,000 order value. 15 to 20 per cent at signature is EUR 36,000 to 48,000, committed before a single guest has confirmed. One year before arrival, it is EUR 120,000. There is room for negotiation here, and that is where we negotiate: with skill, with loyalty, with volume — and with the smart use of ancillary revenue. A hotel bar reserved for your group brings the house revenue it would not otherwise have. That is something to trade with.
Controlled underbooking
The biggest saving comes from deliberately setting the allotment smaller than the guest count suggests — because you know with high probability that a remainder can still be obtained at short notice. That is not in any handbook. It is market feel, and it rests on observing the Munich hotel market anew every trade fair week. The catch: if you miscalculate, you have too few rooms. That is why we only do it where we really know the market.
Servicebroker negotiates these three points before talking about the rate.
The second cost question is the room.
Methodology. Servicebroker survey, August 2026. We compared room rates at 60 Munich business hotels in the three- and four-star category, each at an enquiry volume of 50 rooms. We looked at the trade fair weeks of the most recent editions of BAU, bauma, transport logistic and IFAT — against off-trade-fair periods, i.e. weeks without a major event in the city. All rates gross including taxes.
Collected across all channels available to us: online portals for individual bookings, large event procurement portals, search engines, our own database grown over years, own AI search systems — and, very old-school and very effective: phone calls.
You will not find this figure in any study. We collect it ourselves because we need it for our negotiations. The price markup depends on the calendar, not on negotiation skill. Anyone who wants to negotiate well needs to know what is negotiable — and that is the terms rather than the price.
Result: during trade fair week, the same room costs three to four times as much. We do not promise a best price. We promise that we start early, bundle volume and know the clauses.
Three approaches lie behind that. All three with the catch that comes with them.
Hotels that have not opened yet
As industry professionals we hear early about new hotel openings. A house that is just opening has no reviews and self-bookers avoid it. It has no price memory for trade fair weeks. And it needs reference groups more urgently than a good price. Three reasons why allotments are possible there that do not exist two hundred metres further on. The catch: opening dates slip. Anyone planning this way plans with a fallback — otherwise it is not an advantage but a risk at your expense.
The location, not the price
The exhibition grounds in Riem have been on underground line U2 since 1998, stops Messestadt West and Messestadt Ost. A hotel on this line means your guests come and go on their own. No coach, no waiting. And the real gain is not the coach flat rate you save — it is that the evening does not end because the coach leaves. Anyone who has ever pulled two hundred guests out of a conversation at 22:40 plans differently the next time. The catch: for IAA Mobility the U2 is not enough, because the Open Space lies in the city centre. There, the axis between both locations is what counts.
Places that are not venues yet
We know places that do not yet know they are venues. Not every good place is in a database. Some you have to find, ask, convince and equip technically first. The catch: that takes lead time.
Twelve months ahead it is an idea. Three months ahead it is a risk.
14 · Board Questions
You invest a six-figure sum. You stand for five days. The conversations last three minutes, between flyer and badge scan. Relationships do not form there. They form in the evening, when no one is selling any more. 86.8 per cent of exhibitors name maintaining existing customer relationships as a trade fair objective (AUMA Exhibitor Outlook 2025/2026, n = 400). In our experience, two hours in a place your guests did not expect last longer than the fifth day at the stand.
The question comes. It always comes, and it comes late. 27.7 per cent of exhibitors have to defend the trade fair appearance internally against digital marketing instruments (AUMA Exhibitor Outlook 2026/2027, n = 400). Answer the question after the trade fair and you are justifying yourself. Ask it beforehand and you are measuring. That is why Servicebroker does not start with the place but with the goal. What is a good evening? Twenty new contacts, or three old ones who listen again? Both are right. Just not at the same time. Alongside Return on Investment we put Return on Relationships: repurchase rate, willingness to recommend, trust. That takes longer than a badge scan. It also lasts longer.
You bought the shell and cut the effect. An evening does not work because it was expensive. It works because someone decided what matters — and left out the rest. That is exactly the Offbeat-Service© Method: the seemingly incidental moments between the services. The greatest effect often comes not from the big programme items — the beats — but from the small notes in between, the off beats. The second comfortable chair, placed slightly aside. The welcome gift that picks up the trade fair city. The music that gets quieter at the right moment.
Alongside it the Kano model, tested since the 1980s: you have to deliver the basic features, but they delight no one. Delight arises from what no one expected. Know your budget and you spend it there — instead of gold-plating the buffet nobody mentions afterwards. That is our understanding of Emotional Event Design at corporate events and trade fair side events.
And yes, we plan with AI. It sorts data, checks availability and calculates scenarios faster than any team could. AI offers tools — but no goosebumps! Guests rather than participants — a question of attitude: participants consume a programme, guests experience hospitality. That changes every decision that follows.
The average number of trade fair appearances is falling from 5.4 to 5.1 (AUMA Exhibitor Outlook 2026/2027). What remains must not go wrong. That fits our way of working: fewer, but done right.
You are asked to purchase sustainably and have no yardstick for it. We work with regional partners and modular concepts. What we mean by sustainability
15 · International
Two thirds of exhibitors at transport logistic come from abroad, and delegations travel to IFAT from all over the world. For them the task shifts: less procurement, more hospitality.
Servicebroker works in German and English — in support, in correspondence and in the contract. Add to that interpreters at the table rather than on stage, protocol procedures for official delegations, airport pick-up and evening times that suit where the guests come from.
One contractual partner under German law is often the simpler solution for a foreign purchasing department than ten individual suppliers in an unfamiliar legal system.
Servicebroker GmbH has been the event agency we trust since 2005. Dominik Markoč and his team support us with event procurement — above all accommodation for our groups, mobility management and security for security-sensitive guests. As local insiders you share tips and tricks, and so look after the wellbeing of our international teams and guests.
National Air Cargo (Deutschland) GmbH
Good contract terms, a fast response and support — that is indispensable for events on the scale of bauma. You and your team not only handled our event procurement smoothly, you also led our events to success with heart and mind. For me, Servicebroker stands for professional event management built on trust and personal closeness.
Trimble Germany GmbH
Our traditional partner trip to the BAU trade fair in Munich has been a special experience for over ten years! The innovative event design and the professional organisation by Mr Markoč and his team have already got around among our dormakaba partners. In 2024 we travelled with 90 guests and two coaches. From timing to venues, everything was perfectly coordinated. Fine food, fine wines and warm service made for lively conversations and delighted guests — that is what successful event marketing looks like! From the quotation to the final invoice, Servicebroker looked after us outstandingly.
dormakaba Schweiz SA
17 · Thinking
Economists described this decades ago: why an external partner often purchases more cheaply than an in-house department.
George Akerlof showed in 1970 what happens when one side of a market knows more than the other: the less informed party pays extra — even when they negotiate well.
See Akerlof 1970, Quarterly Journal of Economics 84/3, pp. 488–500.
Oliver Williamson answered the follow-up question. When does a company do it itself, when does it buy in? It depends on how often a task arises and how specialised it is. Five to fifteen trade fairs a year, in a market your counterpart enters every day: that is the case where buying in is the cheaper solution.
See Williamson's Nobel Lecture, 2009.
Servicebroker GmbH, an event agency in Munich-Haidhausen since 1999. We negotiate group allotments from 50 guests for the Munich leading trade fairs, manage the contracts and organise the evening to go with them.
From 50 guests. Below that you will book more cheaply yourself via corporate rates and portals — and we will tell you so.
No. We work with groups from 50 guests. For individual travellers, portals and corporate rates are the better choice.
18 to 24 months ahead, closer to 24. Three years of demand discharge in a single week, and hotel occupancy reaches as far as Augsburg and Ingolstadt. For annual trade fairs such as EXPO REAL, 9 to 12 months are enough.
Servicebroker organises trade fair side events for 100 to 1,000 guests — venue, catering, technical production, programme and direction from a single source. At transport logistic 2025 it was 400 international guests at a lake outside the city.
Depending on the occasion, between around EUR 90 per guest for a dinner at a restaurant and EUR 500 to 1,500 per guest for a customer event with public impact. All figures net, per guest. The table above names four cases with their scope. For your case we calculate line by line.
Servicebroker GmbH. We negotiate the hotel allotment from 50 guests, manage the contracts, find the venue and organise the trade fair side event — one contract, one invoice, one point of responsibility.
Yes, and often that is the better solution. If one house cannot provide the room count or the terms are not right, we distribute. What matters then is location, routes and length of stay — not just the number of rooms.
Stand, stand construction and stand personnel. Individual travellers and hotel groups under 50 guests. Brand staging and digital media design — we have partners for that and make the introduction. Everything else around your trade fair week, we do.
No. Stand, stand construction and stand personnel stay with your stand builder. Servicebroker takes care of everything around it: hotel, venue, evening event, social programme and the mobility of your group.
Yes. At IFAT and transport logistic that is the norm — down to the seating plan, with interpreters at the table rather than on stage.
Mainly 100 to 1,000 guests, typically around 300. Above and below that, our experience ranges from 50 to 5,000 guests. This range has nothing to do with the threshold for hotel allotments.
The office has been in Munich-Haidhausen since 1999. We work Germany-wide. At Munich leading trade fairs, though, the home advantage is a real one — we know the hotels personally.
Yes. Two thirds of exhibitors at transport logistic come from abroad. Support, correspondence and the on-site team work in German and English.
18 · Method
It is slow cooking. Buy fast and you buy whatever happens to be left. The IFAT showcase above took sixteen months before the decision stood — and what made the difference was not the negotiation but the time before it. Every project follows the same path:
And then it starts again — on the last day of the current trade fair.
That is why the first question is never "What does it cost?" but "What should come out of it?" Everything else follows from that.
One conversation, ten minutes, and we will know how we can support you. You will know whether we are the right fit for your trade fair. The rest takes longer — as it should. We are happy to call you back — just tell us when.
Servicebroker GmbH Metzstraße 14b 81667 München/Deutschland