Photokina to become an annual event

“Photokina”, the world's largest biennial photo and cine industry trade fair held in Cologne, Germany since May 1950, has announced that it will become an annual event. Additionally, there are plans to diversify it's traditional focus of cameras and photography to include more products and technologies from the ever expanding imaging ecosystem.

As part of the shift to include the wider digital imaging industry, “Photokina” will extend its focus beyond the traditional photo sphere to include technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, cloud computing, content management, social media, and smart home applications.

Given the current state of the camera and photo industry, these changes aren't entirely surprising, and will hopefully allow “Photokina” to remain a relevant and vibrant event even as the market for photo and motion picture cameras transforms into hypermedia nodes.

The 2018 Photokina will take place from Wednesday, 26 September to Saturday, 29 September, and thus enable a much more intensive trade fair experience.

The next Photokina will takes place from 18 May to 21 May 2022.

The digital transformation of the imaging industry is advancing, and thus opening up new perspectives and value creation potential. The new date and the annual cycle should in future make photokina even more attractive to all providers of the imaging ecosystem. In this way, we show the specialised trade, the media and our users an even broader bandwidth of state-of-the-art products, applications and services in Cologne which especially suits the young imaging culture...
Rainer Führes, chairman of the board of the photography industry association

Photokina's Early Years

“Photokina”, originally an annual event, was started by the Agfa-Gevaert's director Bruno Uhl in May 1950 as a show for German cameras plus an international still and motion photography exhibition.
In April 1951, it went international with 70 foreign and 270 firms from Germany.
April 1952 saw the third and final annual Photokina, from then on it went biennial (mostly). At least for a while. Spring for 1954, then autumn for 1956, 1958 and 1960.
October 1966 saw the first International Convention for Photography and Cinematography in Industry and Technology, which is probably a maximum of three words in German.
After 1966, Photokina settled down to autumn in even-numbered years, until 2018, when we saw the reversal of the tide and going back to it's roots.