Special exhibitions bring the technical input to life and invite visitors to get actively involved.
The Living Light
With the special exhibition The Living Light in Hall 3.1 B10, Light + Building 2026 presents an inspiring special exhibition on the importance of light in everyday life. Four themed areas – Home, Education, Workplace and Communication – show how light provides orientation, creates atmosphere and facilitates encounters. A central, green pathway connects the areas and represents growth, change and the close relationship between people and the environment. Different lighting moods, interactive elements and natural materials allow visitors to experience how light goes beyond pure function and becomes a living part of everyday life.
Entitled ‘The Living Light – where Design and Technology Shape the Future’, this curated special show brings to life the role of light as an integrative element in architecture, space and technology.
The exhibition sees itself as a space for dialogue between design, technology and visions of the future – with real-life room installations, adaptive lighting solutions and interactive interfaces. The aim is to create an inspiring experience that appeals to trade visitors, architects, planners and visionaries alike and brings to life the USP of Light + Building – the unique combination of lighting and building technology within a trade fair.
The content of the special show is being supervised and developed by the lighting design firm Lichtvision Design GmbH.
ZVEH E-House
The E-House shows what sustainable building technologies can look like today. The walk-through model house demonstrates intelligent applications and energy-efficient solutions – from smart home controls to modern systems such as photovoltaics and heat pumps. At the same time, it highlights the comprehensive expertise and high innovative strength of the electrical trade.
The project is supported by the Central Association of German Electrical and Information Technology Trades (ZVEH), the federal association for the electrical trade. It represents the interests of over 48,000 companies in the fields of electrical engineering and information technology. With around half a million employees, including almost 50,000 trainees, the ZVEH actively shapes the economic, technical and professional policy framework conditions of the industry.
AI Lounge
The AI Lounge provides electrical contracting businesses, industry and trade with direct access to AI solutions that can be implemented immediately in day-to-day operations. The focus is on practical, easy-to-understand guidance that can be applied without any programming knowledge and that directly addresses typical challenges in the trade, such as time tracking, process optimisation, planning and customer communication.
With this approach, Messe Frankfurt and handwerk.live make artificial intelligence in the skilled trades tangible and usable, creating sustainable added value for electrical contracting businesses.
ZVEH hot air balloon
There will be a very special highlight at Light + Building 2026. In the middle of the Agora, visitors will have the opportunity to take a hot air balloon ride and enjoy a view of the exhibition grounds. This project is being realised in cooperation with the German Electrical and Information Technology Contractors' Association (ZVEH).
BTGA-Forum
The BTGA will once again be presenting itself and its companies at Light + Building in Hall 9.0, Booth E10 in 2026. Valuable information will be provided by the lecture forum, which will offer specialist presentations and discussions on a variety of topics from different areas such as digitalization, smart buildings, building energy legislation, and recruiting young talent on each day of the trade fair. For the first time, the forum will be held in cooperation with KNX-Deutschland e.V.
A special highlight is the collaboration with Mainz University of Applied Sciences, which will present its smart building real-world laboratory in a live presentation. Visitors can experience how a digital twin can be used to combine data from building automation, IoT sensors, and cloud-based analysis services in a shared model. building technology experts.