I went to MWC Las Vegas and all I got was COVID-19 and not even a lousy t-shirt!

#MWC24LV #ejlwireless

I recently attended MWC Las Vegas and it dawned on me that besides missing 2020 & 2021 due to COVID-19, I have attended the event since 1998. That is 24 years of CTIA prior to GSMA's taking it over and renaming it Mobile World Congress Americas in 2017 as a last ditch attempt by CTIA to keep the event from finally dying.

At that event in San Francisco, there was a huge lightning storm over the city on the opening day of the event. Did the universe have some wicked symbolism at that moment to send a message?

The symbolism of lightning/lighting bolt can mean many things, some of which are listed below.

Transformation and Destiny: Was the universe saying to the attendees it was GSMA's destiny to transform the dying CTIA event to something of greatness like MWC Barcelona? Maybe.

Rebirth and Rejuvenation: See above and the answer is still maybe.

Harry Potter's Scar: Was it a symbol of CTIA surviving a decades long battle with GSMA/MWC and surviving again to come back for many more years? Again, maybe.

Regardless of the symbolism at the 2017 event and the hopes that the show was reviving, the subsequent move to Los Angeles in 2018 and 2019 showed that maybe the GSMA mojo would bring the show back to life. But Los Angeles was a horrible location which forced the GSMA to move it back to Las Vegas in 2021. I would say there was still hope back in 2019 but the return to Las Vegas was about as triumphant as booking at long term residency at the Tropicana Las Vegas. The exhibitor and show attendance has been dramatically declining since 2021 to the point where

Google's Gemini AI gave me a hallucination answer of over 8,000 attendees from 80+ countries. Survey Says? X WRONG ANSWER (From US TV show Family Feud) GSMA says the official number 6,000 attendees in 2024 which is down 25% YoY from 2023 levels. I was guessing somewhere between the pre-show figures of 4,000 and way less than the 8,000 from last year so on the mark!

If you look closely at the illustration at the top of this article, it essentially summarizes the direction for an exhibitor at this event, going from very large booths to smaller and smaller booths, to large executive meeting rooms to small meeting rooms to not exhibiting at all. The trend for the past two years was shifting towards the food court and finding a 4-person white table or a high top table and sitting there the whole day holding meetings and being productive. The food court was again packed full on Days 1 and 2 for this year. We heard the price for a 10x10 exhibit booth was USD $50,000 this year. I am willing to bet that was a very negative ROI for any exhibitor given the lack of attendees on the exhibit floor.

To be fair, EJL Wireless Research had some great meetings at the event (because we always do!) with special thanks to those we met with. We discovered some new companies and products which is always good and reconnected with old friends and made new contacts. We also participated on the Open RAN Workshop session that focused on the challenges and solutions for the rural cellular markets.

But we did not pay for a booth at the show or throw money at a sponsorship.

A trade show lives by the support of its exhibitors and this show is now officially brain dead and on a respirator and the life support should be removed. Maybe the implosion of the Tropicana Las Vegas resort on the night of October 9th is the more appropriate symbolism to take away this year than the lightning storm back in 2017.

And yes, as a parting gift from MWC Las Vegas 2024, I got COVID (probably on the flight coming back to Boston) as a souvenir from Sin City.