InterTabac Cancels ITShub Event

The alternative InterTabac event, ITShub, has been canceled.

Westfalenhallen Unternehmensgruppe, which owns both the InterTabac trade fair and the Messe Dortmund facility it takes place in, has announced that it has canceled ITShub due to “the worldwide rise in SARS-COV2 infections over recent weeks.”

ITShub was scheduled to take place Nov. 3-4 at Messe Dortmund.

The event was announced in July as an alternative to InterTabac, the annual September tobacco trade fair held in Dortmund. ITShub was supposed to be a hybrid event that would have an in-person component, as well as free streaming. By that point, InterTabac 2020 had already been canceled.

“This was our attempt to cater for the industry’s desire to have a platform this year for getting together and engaging in dialogue following postponement of the two flagship exhibitions in September. In times when people are travelling less and communicating more online, a hybrid format seemed to us to be the most suitable way to give the industry this platform,” said Sabine Loos, managing director for Westfalenhallen Unternehmensgruppe, in a statement. “Feeding the online part of a hybrid event with content for virtual visitors naturally requires a panoply of physical events, but the travel associated with being physically present remains a real challenge – especially for international participants – and in the end this is what led to the event being cancelled.”

InterTabac is a global tobacco trade show that hosts companies from all tobacco industries including cigarettes, e-cigarettes/vaping products, cigars, pipe tobacco, smokeless tobacco and others.  In 2019, 13,800 people attended the event which had over 500 exhibitors from 47 countries according to InterTabac.