Is Light + Building dead, or is it the whole lighting industry?

Looking for a silver lining

I waited a couple of days after Light + Building, almost hoping to find a silver lining in what I saw.

I didn’t find one.

What I found instead was a wave of polished PR posts from exhibitors talking about how great, big and important the event supposedly was. And I don’t blame them — the reality of the fair simply wasn’t that glamorous to put on social media.

In reality, it reminded me of that meme my colleague has tattooed on his arm — a dog sitting in a burning room, drinking coffee, with “this is fine” written above. That image sums up my feeling about Light + Building, and maybe even the lighting industry as a whole right now.

What the fair actually felt like

If we look at the fair itself — and I don’t even mean the official numbers — the experience tells enough. Empty halls, half-empty halls, redirected routes to push visitors through certain areas, surprisingly smooth public transport, and the ability to move freely through Messe Frankfurt without that usual chaos. That alone already says something.

Still, the numbers help to put things in perspective. Light + Building peaked in 2018 in both exhibitor and visitor numbers. Then came COVID — 2020 postponed and cancelled, 2022 still heavily affected with around 1,500 exhibitors and roughly 92,000 visitors. In 2024 there was a recovery — over 2,100 exhibitors and around 151,000 visitors. And now 2026 — visitors slightly down to about 144,000, but exhibitors down more noticeably to 1,927.

You could say it’s only around an 11% drop from 2024. I look at it differently — that’s 242 exhibitors gone in just one cycle. That feels like a much more honest reflection of where the industry stands.

The big brands

Yes, the big brands were there — Signify, TRILUX, RZB, LEDVANCE, XAL. Their stands had people. But something felt off. The crowds were concentrated inside those few stands, not flowing through the aisles, not spreading across the halls. And quite a few strong names were simply not there at all.

For me, a small but telling moment was standing at the Signify booth, looking at the Mercedes-AMG F1 mock-up. It’s a strong marketing piece — and normally something like that would be surrounded by people. This time, I could just walk up and take a proper look without any effort. That alone says more than any official statistic.

External factors

Of course, there are external factors. The Middle East situation impacts travel, the absence of Russian-speaking markets after the Ukraine war is very noticeable, and even things like Lufthansa strikes play a role. But those mainly explain visitor numbers. They don’t explain why fewer companies are showing up.

The small signals that matter more

What worried me more were the smaller signals. Stands built and already empty by Wednesday. Conversations with exhibitors where I could stand for half an hour uninterrupted while being told the stand was “booming”. Walking through major brand stands without being approached at all. On Friday, I went through both XAL and Wever & Ducré stands one after another without a single salesperson trying to engage. A few years ago, that would have been impossible.

So what is actually happening?

Maybe it’s just my perspective. Maybe others see the same but don’t say it out loud.

But it doesn’t feel like a temporary dip. It feels like something is shifting.

Maybe we move towards smaller, more focused local events. Maybe Light + Building loses its role as the central meeting point, or transforms into something closer to a conference than a trade fair. Maybe Europe has lost too much of its manufacturing base, moving production elsewhere, and now we’re starting to see the consequences. Or maybe lighting itself is becoming more and more commoditized — less engineering, more product, something that gets ordered by the pallet together with plasterboard.

No bold predictions — but a clear shift

I don’t have a bold prediction here.

But it does feel like we’re entering the biggest shift in the lighting market since LED. And if there’s one thing we learned back then — when the change comes, it doesn’t take long.

So instead of pretending everything is fine, it’s time to reconnect, rethink, and adjust.

Because this time, the shift is already happening.