INTERSCHUTZ had to be postponed by a year. Nonetheless, INTERSCHUTZ is happening in June 2020, that too online. INTERSCHUTZ online will take place from June 15 to 20, 2020 where exhibitors and partners will make their presence felt both on interschutz.de and the social media channels. Technological innovations, memories of previous INTERSCHUTZ editions and previews of INTERSCHUTZ 2021 will be put on display online.

With a week of INTERSCHUTZ online, the organizers at Deutsche Messe are now inviting visitors to gather virtually. 

"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," said 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. Some news has 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," added Folkerts.

Behind the scenes, the team has been working on 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. 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 be different: Combating pandemics is one of the core topics of INTERSCHUTZ. 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. 

The main theme of INTERSCHUTZ will be "Teams, Tactics, Technology – Connected for Protection and Rescue". It will focus on the opportunities and benefits of digital technologies in cooperation between the players involved in protection and rescue.