Business Summary
With around 2.5 million visitors and over 49,000 exhibiting companies every year, Koelnmesse ranks among the top 10 trade fair venues in the world. The company has fundamentally redesigned its trade fair platform and mobile app from a technological perspective to offer exhibitors, visitors, and partners a seamless, up-to-date trade fair experience.
Together with dotSource, Koelnmesse implemented a scalable white-label solution that can be used and adapted for numerous events. This allows components to be reused, appearances to be configured flexibly, and content to be delivered consistently across channels for web and mobile app.
Client | Koelnmesse GmbH |
Industry | Trade Fairs |
Technology | FirstSpirit CMS, First Spirit Cloud Server, Next.js, React Native, AWS API Gateway, AWS Lambda |
Focus | Mobile App Development, Content-Management, UX-Design, Service Integration |
How Koelnmesse Benefits from a Modern Headless Platform
of new events through reusable components
across the website and the mobile app thanks to a shared headless foundation
for content maintenance, plus better author experience thanks to the central white-label solution
for exhibitors and visitors, based on React front ends and data from the Data Integration Hub (DIH)
thanks to an improved customer journey for ticket purchases and exhibitor bookings
Project Overview
About Koelnmesse GmbH
As an event host and organiser, Koelnmesse GmbH stands for innovative and internationally significant trade fairs in Germany – and has done so for more than 100 years. With eleven exhibition halls and a total of around 400,000 m² of indoor and outdoor space, it provides room for a wide variety of events and formats.
Every year, Koelnmesse hosts around 80 trade fairs, exhibitions, external events, and corporate events in the Rhine metropolis and in the most important markets worldwide. The company pursues clear goals with regard to resource conservation and sustainability, and is working towards, among other things, climate neutrality by 2030.
Initial Situation
As »Koelnmesse 3.0«, the company is betting not only on optimised infrastructure and modernisations of the exhibition grounds, but also on innovative digital offerings. The goal was, on the one hand, to enable trade fair visitors to have the optimal trade fair experience with all important information, and, on the other hand, to create new ways for exhibitors to reach visitors.
While Koelnmesse already had a content management system and a mobile app, the existing technical setup only inadequately covered the requirements of the diverse target groups and offered too little flexibility for Koelnmesse's needs. From a strategic perspective, a comprehensive relaunch of the trade fair platform was necessary.
Challenges
Koelnmesse wanted a new set up for its existing trade fair platform and the FirstSpirit CMS so that they can serve as a modern headless foundation for the website and mobile apps. At the same time, the Data Integration Hub (DIH) and other data sources were to be integrated in such a way that content, configurations, and event data can be managed centrally and made available for different channels.
The large number of trade fairs, each with its own requirements in terms of design, features, and target groups, made a flexible white-label solution necessary that allows the reuse of components and supports multichannel scenarios. In addition, the existing mobile app had to be replaced with a solution that is flexible enough for individual requirements.
Back End, Front End & App Orchestrated
System Selection for the App
After consultation by the dotSource experts, Koelnmesse decided on a new mobile app based on the React Native framework. Thanks to this hybrid app solution, features for Android and iOS can be implemented efficiently and further development can be significantly simplified.
Rethinking the FirstSpirit CMS
The existing FirstSpirit content management system was not replaced, but completely re-oriented as a headless CMS. Content and configurations are now maintained so that they are available independent of the front end, serving both the website and the apps of the individual trade fairs from the same source.
Next.js as Front End Technology
For the web platform, Koelnmesse relies on a React-based Next.js application that acts as the interface between the headless CMS, the DIH, and the connected services. This creates fast, flexible front ends that can represent different trade fair websites within the white-label platform.
Shared Back End for Front End
On dotSource's suggestion, the web platform and the mobile app were combined through a shared back end for front end (BFF). It draws on reusable services – for example for networking features – that are provided using AWS Lambda and AWS API Gateway and deliver content as well as data from external systems consistently for all channels.
White-label Solution with Reference Event
With the white-label solution and a reference event (»Mustermesse«), templates and features are bundled in a reusable way and can be configured for individual events. New event sites can be created with little effort this way, while design and feature set are tailored to the respective target group.
Consistent UX Design for the Mobile App
In a compact UX phase, dotSource developed new app-specific page types and a clear user flow based on the existing web design. Using a prototype, components for navigation, networking, and ticket display in the app were demonstrated.
Project Deep Dives
White-label As Shared Basis
The white-label platform is the technical foundation for the digital appearances of numerous Koelnmesse events. It contains all relevant templates, including any configurations and settings for the corresponding trade fair websites. The editorial team can maintain global content, such as text and images, once and reuse it for different trade fair websites.
At the same time, there is enough leeway to individualise specific events with their own focuses and content. This creates a shared technological foundation that facilitates reuse while enabling individual trade fair profiles at the same time.
Shared CMS and a Back End for Front End
The shared back end for front end (BFF) is the central hub between FirstSpirit as the headless CMS, the Data Integration Hub (DIH), and the React-based front ends for website and mobile app. Content, configurations, and data from connected systems are combined here and delivered in a channel-appropriate way.
Shared interfaces and backend logic ensure, thanks to the AWS stack, not only consistent data across the different channels, but also less maintenance and synergies in further development. This means new features for web and app can be implemented simultaneously.
UX Design Tailored Specifically for the App
For the new mobile app, dotSource developed an independent mobile user flow based on the existing design system, which seamlessly fits into the overall look of the trade fair platform. In UX discovery workshops, user journeys and areas such as exhibitor lists, ticket overview, and networking were jointly refined and made tangible in prototypes.
The networking area with contact lists and chat was designed so that it offers visitors and exhibitors real added value on site. The implementation closely followed these prototypes, so that the website and the app offer a consistent multichannel experience.
Headless Platform for Better Services and Growth
With the new trade fair platform and the new mobile app, Koelnmesse has significantly improved its digital service for visitors, exhibitors, and partners with the support of dotSource.
The next joint steps will be a targeted further development in the CMS area as well as planned rollouts for numerous trade fairs. The new mobile app is also to be rolled out in various phases and expanded with further features for networking and digital location services that specifically support the trade fair visit.
Thanks to this new, future-proof system landscape, Koelnmesse, as a trailblazer in the field of trade fairs, can continuously develop its customer-focused, tailored support for visitors, exhibitors, and partners.
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