IDS 2021 postponed until September

Hoping for a better situation with COVID-19 later in 2021, the International Dental Show (IDS) has been pushed from its usual mid-March time frame to September 22-25, 2021.

Dental exhibitors and visitors will have to wait until September to visit Cologne, Germany, for IDS 2021. Image courtesy of Koelnmesse.

"The Association of the German Dental Industry and Koelnmesse have kept a close eye on the developments of the pandemic at all times and have analyzed the possible consequences on the trade fair activities of all personnel involved," said Mark Stephen Pace, chairman of the VDDI, the arm of the German dental industry which oversees the meeting, and Oliver Freser, chief operating officer of Koelnmesse, in a joint statement. "The health of our exhibitors, partners, and visitors takes top priority for us here. After assessing the current facts, we have had to refrain from staging IDS in March and are postponing the always successful dental show to the autumn of next year."

Organizers are hoping that the September time frame allows for the impact of COVID-19 to lessen not only in Cologne but also throughout the world, as more than 160,000 dental exhibitors and attendees from 166 countries took part in IDS in 2019.