"A trade show should be like Christmas, a physical, specific culmination of year-round networking."
Marcel Beaufils in eyebizz magazine January 2021
The eyebizz magazine asked Marcel Beaufils what he expects from a trade fair of the future. Here's what he answered:
The most recent trade show I attended was ISPO in Munich at the end of January 2020. There was already a digital counterpart to this, Ispo Restart, at the end of June. Over two days, more than a hundred speakers appeared, in more than sixty break-out sessions, i.e. smaller chat rooms where people could engage in exchange. The response was very good (www.ispo.com/isporestart- days).
Trade shows will continue to play a major role as places of encounter in the future. I don't believe in the digital push by Corona that will make trade shows superfluous in the long run. On the contrary. If we currently work mostly digitally, i.e. a kind of digital compression is emerging, personal encounters will become all the more important. With the lockdowns, the desire for large events has also grown. There were fewer encounters, fewer direct exchanges with customers, and people want to make up for this lack. This is not a short-term effect. Trade shows remain important, even if they have to change because visitors expect it. Overall, I see a merging of the analog and digital worlds in the future of trade shows. Thanks to our smartphones, we are constantly online. When presentations take place in parallel, I opt for the one at the trade show. I listen to the other presentation digitally later. Streams, chats, discussion rounds, everything continues to be sustained on the web. That's an advantage.
A trade show should be like Christmas, a physical, specific culmination of year-round networking that culminates in an event, like the run-up to Christmas, where everyone comes together with new, exciting ideas and products. Digitally, the exchange between contacts remains possible even after the physical trade fair event, and networking continues to increase.
