A Polemic About Rascals, Waverers and Cowards

The exhibition industry had placed all its hopes in the autumn, because that was when trade fairs were to take place again - under considerable conditions. In the meantime, it has become clear that in many cases this will not happen. The reasons for this are complex and, in some cases, go back a long way. But what does that have to do with rascals, waverers and cowards?

Rascals Risk The Restart Of The Economy

Let's start with the most unpleasant group, the rascals: People who pretend, with unbelievable carelessness and thoughtlessness, that Covid-19 never existed or that it's long gone. They meet at parties, disregard rules of distance and hygiene and don't care about the consequences for society. In the Lake Constance district, for example, one single Balkan returnee who resisted the officially decreed quarantine was enough. Only to turn the district, which has been shining for weeks with the lowest new infection rates, into a hotspot with currently (week 30) 32 acute cases of infection and 172 people in quarantine. These rascals can make sure in any environment - not only at trade fairs - that responsible handling of Covid-19 becomes difficult for our society.

Procrastinators Get The Reckoning For Years Of Doing Nothing

The second group are the waverers: there are many of them among organisers. They are characterised by the fact that they have failed to seriously address digitalisation for years. Everything was going well, the growth rates were high. At the past annual press conferences of the major German exhibition centres, record figures were announced in series - but just for 2019. In addition, the major German exhibition centres are all state-owned. Their primary corporate purpose is to revitalise the region and promote economic development. Is this perhaps why efforts to convince customers to hold exhibitions in autumn are sometimes comparatively timid?

States And Municipalities Will Probably Bear The Losses Of The Messes

Because these events - which have usually shrunk considerably – will only lead us to expect a noticeably lower secondary effect for the host region. Could it be that, therefore, the shareholders are setting the company's management corresponding targets? The state treasury (or the municipal treasurer) will most probably compensate for the losses incurred anyway. The health and public authorities did their part to keep the already insecure market participants in the dark for an unnecessarily long time. The example of Baden-Wuerttemberg made this particularly clear. The private organisers and the entire value chain were left by the wayside, left to fend for themselves in a battle that ultimately could not be won. Now they are all realizing together that their procrastination has immediate consequences, because they either have no alternative to offer their customers - at least not when face-to-face exhibitions are no longer held - and they have to knit with a hot needle, or they come up against the third group.

Entrepreneur Or Coward: Take Risks Or Avoid Them?

This brings us to the cowards, or those who are not: Some organisers have taken up the challenge and are sticking to face-to-face exhibitions or offer their customers digital solutions and extensions. Influenced by the (state and near-state) procrastinators, however, entire industries and their market leaders are increasingly speaking out against exhibitions in autumn. The German branch of Reed Exhibitions - now certainly not known as hesitant - recently had to concede defeat to the depressive environment even with the last flag raised (fitness show "Fibo" in Cologne). Others, such as the family-owned companies AFAG from Nuremberg and HINTE from Karlsruhe, are doing business in the best sense of the word despite all the adverse circumstances. AFAG is determinedly persevering with its general public trade fair "Consumenta" in Nuremberg at the end of October. HINTE now has the two exhibitions "Arbeitsschutz aktuell" and "Intergeo" as purely digital meeting places in its programme - after truly bitter official requirements from the cities of Stuttgart and Berlin made attendance at exhibitions impossible after weeks of procrastination. Messe Dornbirn from Vorarlberg in Austria is planning to hold its " Herbstmesse" at the beginning of September with no less than 350 exhibitors. Even the governor of the province of Vorarlberg will be among the first to support the show - after all, it is all about important stimulation effects for the local economy. A very rare thing in Germany.

Unfavourable Mixture Of Fear And Political Actionism?

These courageous pioneers and many other exhibition organisers, like the entire exhibition industry, are now dealing with completely unsettled markets. The communication chaos in Baden-Wuerttemberg, for example, with a traffic light system that for a long time kept trade fairs on the red level with brothels and saunas and thus branded them unfeasible, contributed to this, as did the Berlin Senate, for example. The latter is celebrating itself for a Corona Clinic on the vacant exhibition grounds, which was (fortunately) not needed until now, and even wants to expand it. In addition, incomprehensible specifications of a maximum of 1,000 participants (independent of the exhibition area) led to a virtual impossibility of economically feasible trade fairs. A prankster, who would suspect a supporting official justification for the cancelled trade fairs of their own trade fair subsidiary?

Cowards Hide Behind Pseudo-Arguments

While in China, large trade fairs are already taking place again without this hiccup, with considerable popularity and without any noticeable spread of the virus, the exhibition industry here in Europe is currently experiencing that the exhibitors are entrenched - at least in part - behind pretended arguments: there is talk of health protection for employees, which may seem rather strange to the staff of supermarkets (and the people who shop there every day). The next argument of limited range may seem more valid at first glance, if it weren't for the digital supplementary offers of some organisers. These could even lead to an increased range. Ultimately, one can only assume that many companies are putting forward flimsy arguments in order to avoid having to commit themselves further.

Fear Is Not A Good Advisor

There seems to be a strange fatefulness about Europe's economy. Many have simply written off the year 2020. Admittedly, many companies have been hit hard and have to think very carefully about what to do with their shrunken liquidity. Retreating into the snail's shell is cost-effective, but what does that mean for the future of the company? Some German Messes seem to be retreating to their function as location promoters - which has been a model of success so far. It is doubtful, to say the least, whether this harebrained approach will prove to be a clever tactic in global competition now of all times. Ultimately, the market-leading German exhibition industry as such is at stake. China will seize this opportunity, while in Europe rascals, waverers and cowards will set the tone. Crazy world.