This question is our evergreen; no matter you are men or women. It is not only about that private parts of our body, but it shows everywhere. It started with dusk of human’s existence, when our ancestors compared size of their clubs, and it shifted to our daily routine. Every time you buy a new car, you are comparing it to the neighbor’s one. Every time you visit your friend’s new flat, you are comparing it to your flat. It is just coded in to our minds, no matter what. Either you are proud and feeling super good, or you are saying to yourself that comforting sentence: “What is small, is cute.” Same thing happens with trade fairs.

In recent two weeks I’ve visited two well established trade fairs in Germany. I am talking about Productronica München and SPS IPC Drives Nürnberg. Both of them are quite big and important in the Europeans margins. Both of them are very nicely organized and it is pleasure to look at them from the trade fairs manager’s point of view. And there goes our comparing issue.

As I already mentioned in my previous posts, I am one of the managers of the biggest trade fair of electronics and electrical engineering in the Czech and Slovak Republic called AMPER. Our trade fair is the most important event in our field of interest for the Central Europe, but if we want to extend our region of influence, we have to look beyond Czech and Slovak borders and that is why we are visiting foreign trade fairs. To be honest, events organized in Germany are most successful and attracts more attention than any other events in the whole Europe (with few exceptions). When I visited Pruductronica and SPS IPC Drives it was obvious, that trade fair management got great tradition both in München and Nürnberg. Both trade fair areas are beautiful, visitors friendly and everything works like well oiled machine. But that is not that much different from the exhibition center in Brno, where AMPER takes place. Services offered to visitors and to exhibitors are of course outstanding, but I would say that there is no difference in between our events. Only and also most obvious difference is in size. Trade Fairs in Germany are twice as big, they double our exhibitor numbers and their budgets and revenues are (possibly) much bigger than ours. Difference in budgets creates probably the biggest divide between Czech and German events. There is not marginable difference in amount of work done by trade fair managements. The difference lies in the Czech market. We are unable to create as flashy and stunning events as they do, simply because our market is much smaller, hence our budgets are as well. This founding is something what bothers me. I would rather found out, that we just have to work harder, change something, but this is something what we cannot change. I know we would be able to organize event with thousands of exhibitors, but under conditions of the Czech Republic, it is not happening.

So in the end, there is the answer to our question. Yes, size matters. You can try as hard as you can, but as old Czech saying goes: “You can make a show with a small clown, but he does not make a stage full.” All we can do is keep fighting against the odds and hope that it will be good enough.

Thanks for reading guys and keep up your work (dreams), Fr. Hamrozi.