It's now official: Automatica will also be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Due to the increasing spread of the virus worldwide and based on the recommendation of the German federal government and the Bavarian state government, Messe München has been forced to postpone automatica 2020.

"Under the current circumstances, it is not justifiable for our customers to hold automatica in mid-June - for health and economic reasons," says Falk Senger, Managing Director of Messe München and responsible for automatica. "We are now looking forward with confidence to organizing a successful automatica 2020 in December together with the industry."

The decision to postpone the event was made by Messe München in close consultation with the VDMA Robotics + Automation Association as the conceptual sponsor of automatica and in consideration of numerous responses from exhibitors. Patrick Schwarzkopf, Managing Director of VDMA Robotics + Automation, explains: "As the conceptual sponsor, VDMA Robotics + Automation supports the postponement of automatica 2020. Due to the current situation, we estimate that exhibitors and visitors will have increasingly limited opportunities to participate. Travel options are currently severely restricted, in addition to the unpredictability of further developments. This fundamentally jeopardizes the feasibility of the trade fair in June. At the same time, the importance of automatica as the world's leading trade fair for intelligent automation and robotics is so great that we do not want to take this risk."

Wilfried Eberhardt, Chairman of the automatica Advisory Board and Chief Marketing Officer at Kuka, adds: "The postponement of automatica to the end of the year is the right decision in view of the current situation. In December, the trade fair will act as an important catalyst for a successful post-crisis period and help the industry to emerge stronger from the current exceptional situation."

automatica 2020 will now take place from December 8 to 11, 2020.