Vystaviste 1, 647 00 Brno

The Exhibition Grounds in Brno were completed in May 1928 as the venue of a great pre war exhibition event ­ Exhibition of Contemporary Culture in Czechoslovakia. Brno gained the largest exhibition premises in the country which ranked with the most up to date ones in Europe thanks to their modern functionalistic style (pavillion A etc.). A 30 000 m² indoor exhibition area in pavillions were available in Brno for industrial and other exhibitions before WW II. However, it was as late as the 50's before the Brno Exhibition Centre entered the international scene by holding the First International Engineering Fair in 1959. As intended by the former centralized system of economics, the exhibition premises in Brno served as a main exhibition centre of the former Czechoslovakia. Although the conditions were unfavourable, the enterprise of Brno Trade Fairs and Exhibitions (BVV) succeeded in running and adequately maintaining the premises and gradually was able to hold specialized fair and exhibition activities from the mid 60's. New pavillions were constructed, the older ones were reconstructed. A lot of money has been invested into information technology and services after the Velvet Revolution in November 1989. The BVV joint stock company co operated at building a new Holiday Inn nearby, a highway leading directly to the Exhibition Centre has been opened as well as a speedway towards Vienna up to the Austrian border.
Nowadays the position of the BVV is that of a renowned Central European organizer of international trade fairs. Comparison with statistical data of major fair companies in Central Europe ­ Poznan, Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava ­ confirm this statement. The gross exhibition area available at the Brno Exhibition Centre at present amounts to 193 000 m² of which 101 000 m² are indoor areas in the pavilions. Technical background of the Exhibition Centre is successfully compared with that of other important exhibition centres in West Europe. In 1997 the BVV organized 43 fairs with 12 664 exhibitors and 4708 co exhibitors occupying 514 019 m² of exhibition area and attracting 971 470 visitors. Some of these fairs such as the International Engineering Fair, International Fair on Information Technologies (INVEX), on Gastronomy (SALIMA) and Automobiles (AUTOTEC/ AUTOSALON) rank with the top ten fairs of their kind in Europe.
The year 1998 was for BVV full of changes. It was the year of their 70^th anniversary and they sold major part of their business to the trade fair company Messe Düsseldorf, which belongs among the seven biggest companies of such kind in Germany. The idea of the new owners is to make the Brno trade fairs the key trade events in the Czech and Slovak Republic. The co-operation of BVV and Messe Dusseldorf should improve the coordination of soliciting, a promotion of Dusseldorf's trade fairs in the Central and Eastern Europe and also make the BVV's access to the Western markets easier. The Dusseldorf's exhibitors will become the business partners of BVV. The co operation of BVV and an important German trade fair company will allow BVV to become a real business bridge between the East and the West.