Why We’ll Fall Out Of Love With Virtual

Eddie Choi says event planners will ’fall back on old habits’ post-Covid. But that’s not a bad thing if they use digital to enhance face-to-face meengs and not as a replacement

IREAD an arcle recently telling us of the big hit Covid has dealt to the events industry and the shi to digital. Let me share this bit:

“With no one flying, and gatherings prohibited, the events industry took a big hit this spring. But many companies have simply shied their budgets to digital events or digital content. Only me will tell if the fall will be a very busy events season, or companies will decide they prefer online events over in-person events.” – Forbes

Will corporate clients opt for virtual events over those that provide face-toface meengs? That’s what people in the events industry are now asking. As a marketer who has worked with digital throughout my career, it is an irony. I’ll be frank with you: I don’t think event companies will adopt the digital way in their businesses. Let me explain.

In April, I parcipated in an experimental project called the Exhibions Think Tank (ETT) organised by the UK-based MBB Consulng Group. ETT was an online project gathering more than 150 exhibion industry professionals from all around the world and we wanted to seek answers on how businesses should transform aer the pandemic.

Most workgroup sessions focused on digital transformaon. A big subject and one for which many were eager to come up with a proposal. At the end of the project, we asked ourselves: “How can we make sure we don’t fall back on the old habits?” The opinion of my group was: “We are likely to fall back.” And the reasons are as follows:

Incompable culture and economic model

Innovaon is a culture, if not a cult, while the events business is a very praccal one. Short-term gain is a mismatch for innovaon. If an exhibion company wants to build an innovaon culture, it is highly likely the company will face the innovator’s dilemma and struggle between catering for shortterm economic gain and a high chance that technologies they adopt won’t actually work for them.

In fact, a plan of innovaon takes years to make profitable returns. For an exhibion company, the sales of square metres in booth space is a safe bet with good profit margins.

Covid-19 is not a long pause in business events, at least not long enough to push everyone outside the comfort zone yet. And I don’t see an immediate urge among organisers to drop the square-metre sales model to reinvent the wheel.

Incompable infrastructure

I am not suggesng that face-to-face events should not go digital. Instead, the digital experience is hardly comparable to a face-to-face event – and now is not the right me.

It is true that online sourcing and virtual marketplaces are close enough to present an alternave to trade exhibions. I must also admit that in the past 20 years unl now we have connuously seen innovaons launched by exhibion companies. Unfortunately, praccally all failed due to lack of paence, short-term commitment, and various technical glitches. Eddie Choi is managing partner of Mills Design, an experienal agency with offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Mills’ clients include Google, Alibaba, Airbus, Dow, and BASF. Eddie remains on the board of Milton Exhibits Group.

More… Why now for event VR?

The early days of virtual exhibions can be traced back to 2003, when the Linden Lab launched the online role-play world applicaon called Second Life. Seven years later, the iconic computer show COMDEX was relaunched as a virtual event. COMDEX rendered a real business exhibion in a digised virtual environment. Since then, not much else has changed. The simulaon provided in the virtual world cannot reproduce an experience close to the physical world. Wearing a VR headset to interact at an exhibion might look cool for some and appear dumb to others. Virtual reality is sll an unnatural experience. Also, the technical infrastructure required to provide the virtual experience isn’t easy for the exhibion industry. Neither are the people and the knowledge there. Most virtual exhibions are provided by third pares, which essenally creates a

The German exhibion organisers are is the result of a survey conducted by AUMA and the Special Associaon for These exhibions were geared to the standards of leading internaonal trade dependency on that type operaon, and organising a virtual exhibion is not as smooth as for a physical show.

Enhancing the event experience is more important than digising the show

So, why not to start a digital team to reinvent your business for the future? This queson is so yesterday. Innovaon is not just I.T. The event business is sll a content business. Many in the events industry are praising transformaonal events like SXSW, Burning Man, TED Talks, and the music fesvals such as Tomorrowland.

5G and digital art raising business events to new level

All these events are not very digital, but the organisers certainly know how to integrate digital content into the event experience.

The experience and the parcipants’ journey in those fesvals are truly fairs in Germany. Accordingly, they are summarised by AUMA under the seal “German For 2020, 375 fairs were originally registered; due to the corona pandemic, were cancelled. remarkably well. German exhibion companies organised a total of 330 trade ever before. Compared to their respecve previous events, the number of exhibitors increased by 2.4%. The number of visitors transformave with both engagement and interacon integrated into all the audience’s touchpoints. While audience engagement has many personal, creave touches, they are not organised as mechanically as virtual events with roles played by roboc avatars.

Prospects post-Covid

When the pandemic is over, the event industry will return to face-to-face events. Virtual shows will be abandoned and more digised content engagements such as live-streaming will be added the faceto-face experience.

Innovaon will sll play an important role in enhancing the event experience, but won’t replace the human touch of events. Same as when social media become part of our daily roune, it didn’t keep us from interacng with each other face to face. Poking me on the screen doesn’t even

German Organisers Power Up For Worldwide Trade Fair Programme In 2021

planning around 360 foreign trade fairs in around 40 countries next year. This AUMA - Associaon of the German Trade Fair Industry among the organisers of foreign trade fairs who are members of Fairs and Exhibions (FAMA).

Trade Fair Quality Abroad (GTQ)”. foreign trade 107 trade fairs were rescheduled and 49

The foreign trade fairs in 2019 went fairs outside Germany in 2019, more than resemble a hug.

exceeded the nine million mark for the second me since 2017.

A comparison with the respecve previous events shows a 5.8 % increase in visitor numbers. Among the five events with the highest number of visitors were four automove exhibions and one trade fair for producon automaon. With the excepon of one automove exhibion in Korea, the shows were held in China. As Germany's most important foreign trade partner, China will remain the most important target market for German organisers from the AUMA and FAMA membership in 2021. Last year, 90 trade fairs were organised there.

That is a share of 27% of all foreign trade fairs of German organisers. Thirteen of the eighteen organisers held trade fairs in China in 2019. The four fairs with the largest number of exhibitors were also held there.