About didacta
didacta describes itself as Europe's largest trade fair for education, and it is the main annual gathering for the German-speaking education sector. The fair rotates between German exhibition cities, with Hannover, Cologne and Stuttgart all taking turns as host. The Didacta Verband, the education industry association with around 250 member companies and organisations, acts as its sponsoring body and helps shape the programme.
The fair is structured around the main stages of learning: early childhood education, school and extracurricular education, and vocational training and adult education, with digital education running through all of them under the didacta DIGITAL banner.
Exhibitors include educational publishers, edtech and learning platform providers, manufacturers of furniture and equipment for classrooms and nurseries, suppliers of teaching and science materials, and training providers. Visitors are teachers, early years practitioners, school leaders, trainers, local authority staff and procurement decision makers, so both users and buyers are present.
An extensive programme of talks, forums and workshops keeps practitioners in the halls, and the organisers cite around 60,000 visitors a year. For suppliers, didacta is an efficient route into the German education market, which is large but fragmented across regions and school types. Because the venue changes from year to year, exhibitors need to treat each edition's logistics afresh.
Next edition
didacta 2027: what to expect
didacta 2027 runs from 23 to 27 February at the Hannover Exhibition Grounds, organised by Deutsche Messe AG in cooperation with the Lower Saxony education ministry and the City of Hannover. It is the first time the fair has been in Hannover since 2018, and the Didacta Verband sees the return as a way to extend its reach into north-eastern Germany. The theme for 2027 is Education at Its Limit? Diversity. Quality. Innovation.
The rotation continues afterwards, with Cologne hosting in 2028 and Stuttgart in 2029.
As a five-day show with a largely German-speaking audience, didacta rewards German language graphics and materials and careful staff rotas. Exhibitors who last took part in Cologne or Stuttgart should check Deutsche Messe's own technical rules and build schedule rather than relying on previous arrangements.