Successful trade fair prospects: "The biggest Kind + Jugend ever"

Exciting trends and innovations from around the world, an attractive event programme and several interesting innovations – this year's Kind + Jugend can already promise this. The leading international trade fair for baby and children's outfitting has once again recorded an exhibitor plus and once again expects more than 24,000 visitors. Find out what you can expect at this year's trade fair.

The baby boom in Germany has no end in sight: the Federal Statistics Office also predicts a stabilisation of the birth rate at a high level for 2018. "Having kids remains popular. Thanks to full employment and all-round support, an ever-increasing number of Germans are deciding to start a family. Modern parents combine family life with urban lifestyle", says Steffen Kahnt, Managing Director of the trade association for toys (BVS). This positive development also continues to provide momentum for baby and children's outfitters: parents spent more than 2.5 billion Euro for their littlest ones in the first 3 years of life (+ 0.9 % more than in the previous year).

All of these aspects of course also provide outstanding prerequisites for Kind + Jugend as the world's leading trade fair in the baby and children's outfitting segment. The focus here has always been on the trends of tomorrow for the children's room, so that the demand of the trade for innovation, high quality products and diversity is completely addressed. Kind + Jugend 2019 can thus seamlessly continue from the successful previous year: 1,288 exhibitors from 55 countries have applied for this year (+4 %). "The biggest Kind + Jugend of all times is coming up", is how Vice President Markus Oster summarises the successful development.

The broad offering of the exhibitors is framed by a professional event programme that addresses the need of visitors for information, and which provides exciting impulses with special events, lectures and award ceremonies. With the Kids Design Award, the Innovation Award and the Consumer Award, the focus is on the three prizes awarded. On the one hand, they provide companies and designers with the opportunity to present themselves, and on the other hand provide ideas and stimuli for the trade.

Start-up area and sustainability list: even more trends and innovations

In times of the "Fridays for Future" movement, a strong orientation toward ecological values is also playing an increasingly important role for parents, next to factors like safety and quality. This is why Kind + Jugend is taking up this mega-trend and presenting a sustainability list for the textiles segment for the first time this year in cooperation with the BTE Handelsverband Textil (BTE trade association for textiles). You can find an overview of the certified exhibitors here . Another innovation is the start-up area, which offers 16 young companies from around the world the opportunity to present their fresh ideas – the trade fair in this way once more emphasises the joy in innovation of the entire industry.

Slight increase in sales in almost all segments noticeable

At the start of the trade fair, traders and manufacturers are pleased at the sustained increase in numbers of births and the increased expenditures for the littlest ones. Among the most important growth segments are once again classic hardware items like prams and children's car seats: this segment has shown above average growth in comparison with previous year of 1.3 percent. The trend here is toward light and compact prams, including quick and self-folders, which are nonetheless in line with the modern lifestyle with children in terms of their design. Digitalisation also isn't stopping at prams and children's car seats: after e-bikes and e-scooters, the e-strollers are now also on the advance. Seat occupancy detection with alarm function, installation controls and monitoring possibilities are already established or are being researched.

In the case of toys for the littlest ones, the market has consolidated after a decline in 2017, and grew last year by 2.4 %. Here too, the aspect of sustainability is playing an ever increasing role, with regard to both production and materials.

Also developing stably is the children and youth furniture segment: with a total sales volume of 4.5 billion Euro in 2018, the share has remained consistent. In this segment too, ecological criteria are especially present: in addition to the leitmotif of sustainability, the share of used children's furniture has increased in keeping with the shared economy movement. Other societal trends that also affect the furniture industry: individualisation and micro-apartments for young people.