Karlsruhe's proximity to France and Switzerland and its wide spectrum of educational and research institutions has earned the city an international reputation for excellence in technology. This benefits not only prestigious companies based in Karlsruhe such as L'Oréal or EnBW, but also the numerous trade fairs and exhibitions held in the city.

Every year Karlsruhe Exhibition Centre stages 30 trade fairs and exhibitions with more than 5,000 exhibitors and almost 700,000 visitors. In recent years it has shown strong growth, expanding markedly in terms of sales, total exhibition space and number of events staged. The "art Karlsruhe" exhibition and Horizont, Karlsruhe's international travel and tourism fair, have grown particularly strongly.

Karlsruhe has three locations for trade fairs, events and conferences. The Exhibition Centre's main location with its accompanying dm Arena is situated on the outskirts of the city in the Rheinstetten-Forchheim district, the Conference Centre is located in the city centre and Europa Hall is just off Karlsruhe's southern ring road. All three locations are easy to get to, with excellent links by road, rail and public transport