The leading international trade fair
for the future of work. ORGATEC.
ORGATEC
ORGATEC in Cologne is the leading international trade fair for the modern working world. IBA is its conceptual sponsor and is responsible for the Wherever Whenever – Work Culture Festival, which will took place for the first time as part of ORGATEC 2024.
The Mission
New Visions of Work
Employees who want to perform well need a work environment that supports them. ORGATEC exhibitors and visitors show what this environment could look like. Their broad perspective includes much more than the traditional workplace. After all, today work is being done in a great variety of places: at home, on the go, or at your desk in the office, in the project room, or in the cafeteria.
The next ORGATEC will take place from 27 to 30 October 2026 in Cologne.
The Role of the IBA
Conceptual Sponsor and Driving Force
The organizer of ORGATEC is Koelnmesse. The IBA is its conceptual sponsor. This means that the IBA and its members actively support the Koelnmesse team’s preparation and staging of ORGATEC, the leading international trade fair for modern office work. The support activities include defining the overall content of ORGATEC, supporting the project management and public relations work, and cooperatively implementing the event formats. In addition, the IBA organizes its own contributions to the programme. In 2024 this was for the first time the Wherever Whenever – Work Culture Festival.
ORGATEC 2024: Review on Something Completely New
The first Work Culture Festival within the ORGATEC structure
As part of ORGATEC 2024, IBA and its members explored the changing world of work at the first Wherever Whenever – Work Culture Festival in October 2024. Together with more than 130 international experts from the fields of architecture, design and culture, new work, HR and trend research, they delved into the transformation of the world of work in lectures, panel discussions, interactive workshops and exhibitions.
The festival became a vibrant platform for all those involved in shaping the world of work. A review with videos and summaries of selected talks can be found on our festival website. The next Wherever Wehnever – Work Culture Festival will take place from 27 to 30 October 2026 in Cologne.
More impressions from the first Wherever Whenever – Work Culture Festival
On our YouTube channel
Hier treffen Zukunftsthemen auf Praxis: Ob Beyond Office, Work Culture, Nachhaltigkeit oder Hybrid Work, wir liefern Impulse für alle, die Arbeitswelten aktiv gestalten wollen. Unsere Videos zeigen inspirierende Talks, Keynotes und Einblicke aus dem Work Culture Festival sowie weiteren Veranstaltungen. Wir verbinden Raum, Technologie, Kultur und schaffen neue Perspektiven für das Arbeiten von morgen. Jetzt entdecken, mitdenken und abonnieren: @ibaforum
Review ORGATEC 2022
A Convincing Restart
After an involuntary long pause, Koelnmesse and the IBA once again invited exhibitors and visitors to the trade fair halls from 25 to 29 October 2022. The slogan was “New Visions of Work”. Around 600 exhibitors from 35 countries contributed to the event’s success. The IBA Forum was there as well, with the largest stage at ORGATEC 2022, four interesting partners and lots of inspiration.
You can find the recordings of the presentations in our media center.
Review 2020
Unintentional Pause
On account of the Covid-19 pandemic, ORGATEC 2020 had to be cancelled.
Review ORGATEC 2018
Two Conferences and 63,000 Visitors
From 23 to 27 October 2018, 63,000 people from 142 countries came to Cologne in order to find out about the latest trends in office work. In line with the slogan “Culture@Work”, the organizers and exhibitors showcased numerous ways to design office work. On display were products for office workplaces, concepts for project rooms and new ideas for communication and design areas in hotels, for example.
The highlights of the supporting programme were the second Time Conference Work & Style, the XING New Work Sessions ORGATEC and the presentation of the Best Workplace Awards by the IBA and the employer evaluation platform kununu. In addition, the IBA was represented by its own presentation stage.
The cover photo of the page: © Koelnmesse
