Photokina
trade fair for the photographic and imaging industries in Cologne (1950-2018)
Photokina is a trade fair held in Europe for the photographic and imaging industries. It is the world's largest such trade fair. The first Photokina was held in Cologne, Germany, in 1950, and since 1966 it has been held biennially in September at the Koelnmesse Trade Fair and Exhibition Centre in Deutz. The final Photokina under the then-current biennial cycle took place in 2018. Initially, the promoters planned to start a new annual cycle in 2019, with future shows to be held in May, but they later decided not to begin the new annual cycle until 2020. The worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the imaging industry made Koelnmesse decide to cancel both Photokina 2020 and Photokina 2021. Many photographic and imaging companies introduce and showcase state of the art imaging products at Photokina.
Similar trade shows
The show has two main competitors, both of which are annual shows held in different parts of the world. The CP+ show in Yokohama, Japan, originally the Japan Camera Show, has been held since the early 1960s. In the U.S., the main photography show is PMA@CES, which since 2012 has coincided with the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The public source identifies “Photokina” as trade fair for the photographic and imaging industries in Cologne (1950-2018). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Photokina, trade and fair.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q265474. Authority coordinates are 50.948, 6.984. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950, 1966, 2018 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Photokina” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.