Editor’s Note
This year marks the 100th edition of the Swiss Sample Fair (Muba), a remarkable institution born in 1917 from a wartime initiative to support the Swiss economy. Its centennial is a testament to enduring innovation and resilience.
It is a remarkable story: In the midst of the First World War, the then director of the General Trade School, Belgian artist Jules de Praetere, initiated the founding of a goods fair for the war-troubled Swiss economy. In 1917, the Swiss Sample Fair (Muba) was born, which this year can celebrate its 100th edition.
100 years is also an advanced age, which is evident in the actual birthday child, Muba, while the corporate group that emerged from it is brilliantly positioned. For years, the ideal status of the “mother of all fairs” has been considerably higher than its economic significance.
Messe CEO René Kamm describes Muba in the anniversary book as an “anachronism.”
A prime example of an event tailored to a specific target group is the Baselworld Watch and Jewellery Show. As the Swiss Watch Fair and later the European Watch and Jewellery Fair, it was for a long time an integrated part of Muba and later a parallel fair. Today, it is the MCH Group’s flagship, clearly separated from Muba, to which all other events are quasi-subordinate.
Over time, Muba also lost other specialized areas – such as the Swissbau construction fair and the international trade fair for woodworking “Holz.” The mother fair was surpassed by its children and has slipped far down in the hierarchy of trade fair events. This is evident alone in the fact that its dates are regularly shifted back and forth.
The “anachronistic” sample fair is therefore no longer the major public magnet. Its first edition, which took place in the Stadtcasino and a hall of the Badischer Bahnhof, still managed to attract 300,000 visitors. In 2015, there were still about 132,000, over 30,000 fewer visitors than the year before.
However, those responsible do not want to write off the good old sample fair. Not yet, at least.
Upon inquiry by TagesWoche, the fair CEO says that more than just nostalgia is behind the continuation of the sample fair.
This refers to the Rundhofhalle or Hall 2, which Muba, which once extended over the entire fairground, still occupies today. And the fair square, as Muba Communications Manager Simon Dürrenberger adds. It will be the last fair that Dürrenberger will accompany. In October 2015, the MCH Group announced that Dürrenberger and Fair Director Kay Schmid, who was only two years in office, were leaving.
Dürrenberger did not want to say who would take over Schmid’s successor.
