- Dates
- 5 to 8 April 2027 (Monday to Thursday)
- Venue
- Exhibition Grounds, Hannover
- Organiser
- Deutsche Messe AG
- Partner country
- Spain
- 2026 edition
- About 110,000 visitors, 40% from abroad
- New in 2027
- Europe Energy Week alongside
Sources: HANNOVER MESSE facts and figures, Hannover.de 2026 report.
HANNOVER MESSE 2027 runs from 5 to 8 April 2027, now a four-day show from Monday to Thursday, with Spain as partner country and a new Europe Energy Week alongside it. The 2026 edition drew around 110,000 visitors, roughly 40 per cent of them from abroad. For suppliers of automation, drives, fluid power, electrical engineering and industrial components it is still the largest single meeting point in the industrial calendar.
It is also one of the hardest fairs to stand out at. Thousands of exhibitors show components that, closed and static, look very much like their neighbours' components. This guide covers how industrial suppliers use 3D animation, x-ray views and renders from CAD at Hannover, and what to prepare before April.
What Hannover visitors are looking for
Visitors are engineers, purchasing managers and decision makers from machine building, process industries, automotive and energy. The 2026 and 2027 themes lean heavily on AI, robotics, digital industries and energy. In practice, a visitor at a drive or actuator stand is trying to answer concrete questions quickly:
- What is inside, and why is it better engineered than the alternative?
- How does it integrate into my machine, mechanically and digitally?
- What does it do to energy use, maintenance and uptime?
- Which variant fits my application?
A component sitting in a display case answers none of these. An x-ray or exploded animation built from the product's CAD answers the first in ten seconds, and a short application film answers the second.
Five visual formats that work at Hannover
1. X-ray and explode clips
15 to 30 seconds per product. The housing turns transparent, the internals move, the product explodes into its components and reassembles. These clips explain engineering quality without text and are the most shared format on LinkedIn after the fair.
2. Application films
Your component inside a customer's machine, in motion. For drives, sensors, pneumatics and linear motion this context is what turns a datasheet into a use case. The machine around your product can be simplified, so you do not need the customer's full CAD.
3. Energy and efficiency visualisations
With Europe Energy Week running alongside, energy flow is a natural theme for 2027. Animated overlays showing heat, airflow, compressed air or power flow through a system make efficiency claims tangible. Our rotary screw compressor cutaway is an example of airflow made visible.
4. Product range renders
A full range in one consistent visual standard, from the smallest to the largest size, for the booth wall, the catalogue and the online shop. Once the first product is prepared, each variant costs far less. Our catalogue batch pricing starts at $340 per SKU.
5. Interactive 3D on the stand
A touch screen or tablet where visitors rotate the product, open it and pick variants. It keeps people at the stand and gives your sales team a reason to start a conversation. The same model works on your website afterwards.
Mistakes we see on industrial stands
- A corporate film on the main screen. Long intros and voice-over do not work in a hall. Put the corporate film on the website and a silent product loop on the stand.
- Too much text on screen. If a caption takes longer than three seconds to read, it is a slide, not a caption.
- Only the outside of the product. Visitors can already see the outside on the plinth. Show the inside.
- Assets that end with the fair. Plan every clip so it also works as a LinkedIn post, a product page video and a sales presentation slide.
After the fair
Gartner's research on B2B buying found that buyers spend only around 17 per cent of their buying time meeting potential suppliers, split across every supplier they consider. Most of the decision happens without you in the room. The renders and clips you produce for Hannover are what your contact forwards to colleagues afterwards, so make sure each one makes sense without a salesperson explaining it.
Timeline for HANNOVER MESSE 2027
| Asset | Production time | Send CAD by |
|---|---|---|
| Process or line film (60 to 120 s) | 8 to 10 weeks | 11 January 2027 |
| Cinematic launch film | 8 to 12 weeks | 28 December 2026 |
| Feature highlight film (20 to 45 s) | 2 to 4 weeks | 15 February 2027 |
| Booth wall prints from renders | 5 to 10 working days, plus print | 22 February 2027 |
| Renders for pre-show emails and press | 5 to 10 working days | 1 February 2027 |
Hannover follows quickly after LogiMAT in March, so many suppliers produce one set of assets for both. If you exhibit at both, brief in December 2026 at the latest.
Budget
All prices include CAD preparation and full usage rights. For a first test, our $800 pilot project delivers three renders of one component in three working days.
What to send
- CAD of the products you will show, STEP or native, including variants.
- One application example: the machine or system your product typically sits in, even as a sketch.
- Stand screen sizes and positions.
- Your messages for 2027, especially anything on energy, AI or digital integration.
We reply within one working day with a fixed quote. See also our guides to LogiMAT and ProMat 2027 and the full 2027 trade fair calendar.
Written by Bilal Naseem, mechanical engineer and founder of 3DEnginuity. Questions about your own machine? Write to [email protected].
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