ProWein in decline

In its press release, Messe Düsseldorf celebrates ProWein 2025 (16–18 March) as a success. However, the facts speak a different language. Only 4200 exhibitors, 20 per cent fewer than last year, were spread across the eleven exhibition halls. The number of visitors also fell, by a good ten per cent to 42000 compared to 2024. By comparison, ProWein recorded over 6800 exhibitors and over 60000 trade visitors in 2018. While the trade fair continues to emphasise the outstanding importance of ProWein for the international wine industry, the exodus of German wine producers in particular has reached a new dimension. Only around 900 exhibitors came from Germany in 2025.

For the first time, the competing Wine Paris, which took place in February, reported higher exhibitor and visitor numbers than ProWein this year. Although there is also clear criticism of the Paris wine fair.

Hotel costs in Paris are lower than in Düsseldorf during the trade fair. However, German wine producers criticise the long journey times by public transport within the French metropolitan region and the fact that the German exhibitors were accommodated in a side hall and only had a few visitors there. In Paris, all that glitters is by no means gold. This makes it all the worse that ProWein apparently lacks sustainable concepts to at least bind the German exhibitors to Düsseldorf in the long term.

Many trade fair visitors consider the steep prices charged by Düsseldorf's gastronomy to be a rip-off. Both hotels and restaurants seem to have no mercy during the trade fair. In view of the exorbitant prices and often mediocre quality (mini single rooms with baked rolls for breakfast for € 300 per night), the exploited trade fair guests can often only flutter their ears. But this is how the free market economy works. The fact that an entire industry is diligently sawing on the branch on which it sits in this way is a natural side effect of capitalism that can be observed in many areas of society.

Finally, Düsseldorf's negative image as a host city is completed by the Rheinbahn, a constant annoyance even during non-trade fair periods. Cancellations and delays feel more like the rule than the exception. When passenger numbers are high, the local public transport system in the North Rhine-Westphalian state capital quickly comes to its knees. Visitors to the home games of second-division football team Fortuna Düsseldorf in the RheinArena next to the exhibition centre can tell you a thing or two about it. For ProWein 2024, the employees of Düsseldorf's public transport company went on strike. That may be their right. However, Düsseldorf did not leave a good impression on trade fair visitors with this untimely strike. This year, the Rheinbahn was better able to cope with the flow of visitors. No wonder, as the total number of visitors to the trade fair did not even reach the number of spectators at a well-attended Fortuna home game.

The main annoyance is and remains the stand fees. This is where the trade fair really strikes. This hurts the many small and medium-sized German producers in particular, who characterise the image of the domestic wine industry, especially in times of crisis. The trade fair likes to celebrate itself as a “platform for global networking”, but deliberately ignores the fact that every exhibitor decides at the end of the trade fair after a cost-benefit analysis whether to come back to Düsseldorf next year. They can network until the doctor comes. If fewer and fewer importers from the still solvent foreign countries visit the trade fair, many German winegrowers can no longer make ends meet.

After many years of expansion, the trade fair is finding it difficult to scrutinise its own concept, recognise potential for further development or reinvent itself. It does send out quiet signals at one point or another to suggest that the problems are being taken seriously (early bird tickets for trade fair visitors and an online reservation platform to help finding hotel rooms). Beyond that, it provides no arguments for the many German family businesses that have come under economic pressure due to shrinking wine consumption and currently have to turn over every Euro they invest several times beforehand. The trade fair was apparently so overwhelmed by our press enquiry that it did not know what to answer.

Photo: Messe Düsseldorf

ProWein would rather continue to cling to the swanky eleven-hall solution with wide aisles, which undoubtedly made sense in times of the coronavirus pandemic. In view of the declining demand from exhibitors and trade fair visitors, the trade fair would be well advised to reduce the number of halls again, thereby increasing cost efficiency and offering exhibitors competitive stand fees again. This would not be an admission of the trade fair's declining importance – the exhibitor and visitor figures speak for themselves anyway – but an expression of an overdue willingness to finally turn the tide.