From 2013 onwards Designers' Open Leipzig will be organised by Leipzig Messe. The current organisers and festival founders Jan Hartmann and Andreas Neubert will continue to assist with the content and conceptual planning; however, all legal and financial control has been taken on by Leipzig Messe.
More observant readers will have noticed that we didn't report from Designers' Open 2012.
The simple reason is that we saw little reason to visit it. And that despite it being staged about 10 minutes bike ride from our office.
Week in, week out a design festival or trade fair is held somewhere. And week in, week out the fairs not only resemble ever more one another, but we start to question why we go. What is special about that particular event? What do we get from the experience? Why is it worth the trip?
And with Designers' Open we finally ran out of arguments.
Which shouldn't be confused with us thinking the festival is in anyway substandard or pointless.
Far from it.
Designers' Open serves an important function and with, for example, its attempts in recent years to bring innovative technologies and materials to the fore is certainly moving in some interesting and relevant directions.
But something with the complete package currently isn't right.
The continual change of location has become tiring.
The communication with and from the responsible PR agencies is/was either sporadic or more geared towards promoting sponsors rather than assisting the "normal" exhibitors.
The exhibitors themselves then all too often lacked any genuine sparkle or innovation.
The opening parallel to the Grassimesse Awards Ceremony always poses logistic problems. And we always go to Grassi.
Then, personally for us, there is too much fashion. As professions fashion and design don't fit together as easily as lifestyle magazines and celebrity TV shows would have us believe. They are different disciplines and in our opinion festivals should concentrate on one or the other. And we certainly don't want to spend a day walking around a fashion exhibition.
And so for us the whole event became too confuse and confusing ... and eventually we just drifted too far from it.
Consequently we like the idea of the Leipzig Messe taking on the organisation. Even if we don't yet fully know or understand what that means.
But with their relatively automatic procedures for organising such events and their longer term financial planning security, they should certainly be in a position to make the complete package more coherent.
Which should then make the event itself more relevant and enjoyable. For all.
And hopefully they will use the expertise and experience of Jan Hartmann and Andreas Neubert. We hope that the nice words in the press release aren't ... well just nice words. Designers' Open has become the wide reaching event it is thanks to the efforts of Jan Hartmann and Andreas Neubert. We hope they continue.
If they do will of course also depend to an extent on which direction Leipzig Messe decide to take Designers' Open, and for all in how far it remains a mix of market and conference and in how far the event is opened up for larger companies.
We'll keep you updated.
(And by way of an idle thought....
It could all get really interesting and exciting if the Leipzig Messe also announce that they are stepping is as partner for Qubique 2013.
Berlin Messe don't want it...... A cooperation with DMY Berlin is as unlikely as ever..... And it would be nice way to "get back" at Cologne for the whole Games Convention episode....
As we say just an idle thought!)
