Vienna Coffee Festival: Small fair with many purchasing opportunities

At the beginning of September 2024, Vienna's Marx Halle was all about coffee and coffee machines. This year's Vienna Coffee Festival took place from September 6 to 8, 2024. The B2C trade fair was strongly geared towards selling products directly to consumers on site.

The Austrian capital has an extremely long tradition when it comes to coffee and is also considered the epitome of the so-called coffee house culture. The fact that the required raw material cannot usually be grown in the Alpine republic is irrelevant. Importers or so-called refiners established themselves on the market in Vienna as early as the 18th and 18th centuries. Some of these still exist today and are among the leading suppliers, at least in Europe.

The expectations placed on an international coffee fair taking place in Vienna are therefore quite high. Numerous exhibitors from various countries, as well as small regional companies, presented their products. From the typical Tchibo/Eduscho package to organic varieties that are said to have been grown and processed in a particularly sustainable manner, pretty much everything was on display and available to purchase if desired. Even coffee plants and other perennial plants were on offer.

The focus was on sales

However, the trade fair was also exclusively focused on coffee and coffee machines. Anyone who expected that tea drinkers would also get their money's worth was disappointed. But it was a coffee exhibition, not a tea exhibition. Nevertheless, a stand from the Czech Budweiser brewery, which was also a sponsor, seemed a little out of place, as it did not really fit the trade fair theme. The coffee on offer could also be tasted at almost all stands. However, there was a lack of "side dishes", as the food offering was very rudimentary, with only a few suppliers present.

The focus of the Vienna Coffee Festival was obviously on selling products to end customers. Depending on the stand, after a sample it was more or less obvious what the staff of the respective exhibitor were interested in. Sometimes the coffee products, some of which were in the so-called premium segment, were offered for sale in a rather pushy manner and combined with supposed discount campaigns. This also applies to coffee machines, but the threshold for visitors was probably much higher here, since it was not a packet of coffee beans costing between ten and around 50 euros (depending on the product), but rather high-priced machines from the more upscale segment.

Many visitors gave very positive feedback, and one or two of them even seemed to have stocked up on a year's supply. One visitor told Aviation.Direct that there was a special variety from a small company abroad that she couldn't get anywhere else. When asked why she didn't just order it online, the woman replied that she would have come to try it and who knows, maybe she would find an even better variety.

Hot exhibition hall, too few toilets

However, one or two trade fair visitors expressed their surprise. For the entrance fee of around 20 euros, they more or less acquired the right to go shopping. The Vienna Coffee Festival is a B2C sales fair and, especially in times before online shopping, trade fairs were always used to establish new customer contacts and to sell. It makes no difference whether machines, airplanes or coffee beans are being sold. The critics were probably expecting a much bigger event, especially since the fair was heavily advertised in the weeks before it began.

It may also have played a role that it was quite warm in the Marx Hall during the trade fair. This is because it is a historic building. This gives the exhibition a really great atmosphere, but the downside is that there is simply no effective air conditioning system. The Federal Monuments Office may have something against this, because from a purely technical point of view the building owner could certainly retrofit this.

Another drawback of the location is that there are far too few toilets. There was only one toilet facility available in each exhibition area. Given the large number of visitors, this is of course far too few, so there were bottlenecks and associated waiting times at times.

Certainly successful for exhibitors

In summary, the Vienna Coffee Festival was a very attractive, albeit small, event for people looking for new types of coffee or machines. Anyone who expected to end up at a large trade fair along the lines of the Farnborough Air Show was disappointed. However, the organizers never promised this. There were certainly a few bargains to be had. Given the fact that a lot was sold at the stands, it can be assumed that it was definitely worth it for the exhibitors.

From the visitors' point of view, anyone who came with the clear intention of buying certainly had a lot of fun at the fair. However, anyone who just wanted to get information or learn something new might have been a little disappointed by the fact that the exhibition was quite small. For the future, we hope that the organizers will succeed in attracting more exhibitors from home and abroad so that the Vienna Coffee Festival can grow steadily and offer participants more every year.