New website celebrates 70 years of the K show

Outside the first K show in 1952. Photo Credit: Messe Düsseldorf

The organizer of the triennial K show in Düsseldorf, Germany, is marking the event’s 70th anniversary this year with a new website dedicated to exploring the show’s history.

The first K show was held from Oct. 11-19, 1952, occupying around 14,000 square metres of net exhibition space and drawing approximately 165,000 visitors. The motto of the first show was “Wunder der Kunststoffe”, which means “Miracles of plastics.”

Today, around 3,000 exhibitors from more than 60 nations present themselves at K in Düsseldorf, and the most recent staging of the show in 2019 drew more than 220,000 visitors from over 165 countries.

At the inaugural show in 1952, all 270 participating companies came from Germany. Among them were 11 companies that have exhibited regularly at every K show since then: BASF, Brabender GmbH & Co.KG, Hosokawa AG, Kautex Maschinenbau GmbH, KraussMaffei Extrusion GmbH, Ihne & Tesch GmbH, Leistritz Extrusionstechnik GmbH, Reifenhäuser GmbH & Co.KG, Röhm GmbH, Wacker Chemie AG, Wittmann Battenfeld Deutschland GmbH, and Carl Hanser Verlag GmbH & Co.KG.

“What began as a small consumer fair with many everyday products such as nylon stockings has developed into the world’s leading trade fair for the entire plastics and rubber industry,” show organizer Messe Düsseldorf says on the website. “70 years of K not only means getting to know plastics in all its facets, but also meeting many celebrities at the fair and discovering inventions that revolutionize the industry time and again. We proudly look back on 70 years full of ideas, innovations, and surprises.”

K 2022 is scheduled for Oct. 19-26 at the Messe Düsseldorf fairgrounds.