65 OVER THE TOP Trade Shows
“By acting as a focal point for the industry and gathering together key influencers and decision makers, we feel that IBC can actually help to reduce the need for travel. Attendees are able to cram tens and even hundreds of meetings into a relatively short space of time. The carbon footprint of conducting these This conundrum of how and when to get people face to face is going to be a defining feature of business in the 2020s. OLD WORLD, NEW WORLD As the landscape changes, it’s possible that smaller, more focused and local gatherings will begin to supplant some of the larger shows. Rather than fly to a one-size-fits-all mega trade show, small specialty events with nearby peers might begin to become more important in the calendar. Last year, FEED spoke to Mark Harrison, managing director of the DPP, about the future of industry meet- ups, which already seem to be undergoing a transformation. He said: “The ways of communicating via the web have only supplemented the value of human encounters. Social media provides all sorts of tools and opportunities to chat in general, but people still do want to come together and chat physically - possibly more than ever. In our busy lives, as we get so fragmented, we need those touchstone moments.” He continued: “I think we’ll start to see a lot of facilitated industry events become meetings individually would be considerably higher than that of attending IBC,” says Laker.
more focused and more aware of the take-aways that attendees are going to get… I think we’ll start to see growth of smaller, more boutique, more specialist events. As with advertising, targeting a smaller, but highly targeted and highly relevant audience can be better value than advertising to a big general one. That may start to apply around some of our professional events, too.” If we are to survive as an industry – and by that I actually mean, survive as a species – we have to face up the fact that we need to massively and rapidly change the way we do just about everything. When you first hear that it sounds kind of depressing – or at the very least, annoying. But changing how we do things means the opportunity to improve how we do things. It’s carte blanche to experiment. The overhaul that’s needed to save ourselves is an opportunity to overhaul everything about how we live and work. It’s an unprecedented chance to leapfrog
attend the event in person? Certainly, Skype, Zoom and Google Hangouts have facilitated this enormously. But what about the next step afterwards? Will VR, AR and holography be the next evolution in virtual business hook-ups? Will IBC conference ticket holders be able to watch the entire conference programme remotely? Maybe from specially designed IBC microconferences around the world? I would bet on a massive boom in these remote communications technologies over the next decade. There will be a first wave of users who want to do all they can to get to zero emissions as soon as they can, and there will been a second wave who will be forced to by legislation. FEED will look more deeply into these technologies in our corporate communications issue in January 2020. Most of us are still stuck at the stage of yelling into a speakerphone a conference room, but this may all change very soon. IBC’s Laker points out the importance of getting people together physically in a room, and this seems doubly important in a world where technology isolates us as much as it brings us together. Business happens when people can see each other and shake each other’s hands. IBC IS LOOKING AT PROVIDING A CARBON OFFSETTING SERVICE
ahead in terms of technology, business practices, creativity and wellbeing. While we may fear the
end of the world, this could actually mean the end of a way of living and working that wasn’t that good for us
anyway, and the beginning of one that will incorporate our best hopes and dreams… And one where 100,000 people can tour every stand at IBC in VR without getting sore feet. At FEED , we hope to be a means for the industry to exchange ideas that will enable it to rise to the next level. Let us know how we can help.
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