Trade shows: The recapture of relevance

Highly interesting insight in the discussion in the (Swiss) watch industry and relevance of trade shows in Financial Times on Saturday last week.

We might have to accept, that it will need time until brands with excellent communication skills online see the value of trade shows again as useful market places and "Christmas events for the industry" to look forward to. Not in every industry, but perhaps in more industries than we would have hoped.

We used to have those kind of phenomena before Corona, when brands decided to go their own way and offered own events while not attending their leading trade shows. But more often than not, they came back after a few years. In the meantime we (organizers) have to find other ways beside trade shows to serve and integrate them using other instruments / channels. This is what taught us Corona in a hard way- to offer other instruments and channel.

For me the CONTEXT of trade shows is key and we have to underline the relevance of it. It used to be not very tangible in the past, because we were used to these big leading shows (especially in Germany). But the smaller events or single corporate events are on the market, the more intransparent are developments, trends and a single industry. For a restart we need new answers and concepts plus genuine cooperation with communities, industries, customers. No excuses.

Thank you, Paul Woodward, for sharing the link on Twitter.