What if this moment was ultimately an opportunity to reimagine the future of fairs and events ?

10 months without an event

Just one year ago, at the end of a particularly dynamic January 2020 fair, we were looking forward to seeing you once again in September for the second session of Maison&Objet Paris. In the end, that's not what happened.

Throughout the last 10 months, event professionals have had to postpone or cancel their events and adapt without any real visibility, without precedence and with uncertainty. Who could have imagined such a reality a year ago?

In addition to those who organise these events, today a whole ecosystem that is used to being flexible and reactive is being affected, and in most cases without revenue.

On a global basis, hotels, restaurants and airlines have indirectly felt the impact produced by the absence of major international events and trade fairs.

In our case, nearly 80,000 visitors make their way to Paris twice a year to experience and explore at Maison&Objet. Each edition accounts for 1.6 billion euros in business deals between exhibitors and visitors; and nearly 145 million euros in direct and indirect benefits for the Paris region alone, with more than 2,500 jobs created or maintained at the national scale. That's colossal!

What is the purpose of an exhibition organiser ?

Our industry can and has used this crisis as a catalyst for change that had already begun in showing creativity and questioning its missions and its raison d'être.

At Maison&Objet, we have been defining the nature of our mission since 2017. And our conclusion is that we exist first and foremost to support and help our customers in the long-term, providing effective networking tools so they can develop internationally. 

Digital technology is becoming essential to the extension of the physical experience (or as a replacement in the event of a pandemic...) and to optimise the relationship between the two.

Of course, physical connection is a fundamental element in establishing a relationship, but it is now impossible to imagine that it is the only one. Since the onset of 2016, we have invested significantly in our digital platform, MOM, to enable our community to communicate yearlong. The goal? To allow buyers and specifiers to be in touch with the brands through their new product catalogues.

To do so, we had to invent new business models, hire suitable profiles and alter our processes. Our corporate life changed as a result.

It is thanks to this anticipation and to teams who are already experts in digital technology that we were able to switch to a 100% digital model last September.

In September 2020, during our first ever Digital Fair, we were able to draw more than 214,000 unique professional visitors to MOM over a two-week period - 60% of whom joined from abroad - almost three times more than a "traditional" edition of the show. But that's not all; we noted an average connection time of 11 minutes (excluding viewing conferences), which proves the quality and relevance of the experience and audience.

This has enabled us to refine a plan for the first quarter of 2021, this time offering thematic Digital Days, focused on the trends and seasonal features that structure the sector. We have created new content formats, including a podcast dedicated to design entrepreneurs. It is also thanks to these ideas, and the almost immediate feedback, that we are in a position to build the new tradeshow models and their online versions for the years to come.

In less than 10 months, we have tripled the number of brands subscribed to MOM and we have reached a critical mass with nearly 1,700 exhibitors on this digital platform.

From then on, when a brand is part of the Maison&Objet ecosystem, they can benefit from the physical visibility at the show, an online presence on our platform and through our bi-weekly selections that are distributed to our buyer databases, and also on the brand's social networks; it's a grand and highly qualified exposure with platforms such as Maison&Objet's Instagram account reaching more than 830,000 followers.

Imagine new services that could be monetised

This period should also be an opportunity to take a step back. A tradeshow organiser is above all a market leader. As such, they have real expertise in the market(s) they serve, and they hold high-quality data.

At Maison&Objet, for more than 25 years, we have surrounded ourselves with French and international experts who help us understand social trends and their impact in the home decor and lifestyle sectors. Until now, we have mainly spread this content via our conference programmes during the fairs.

In the very near future, and thanks to the experience gained over the last few months, we hope to produce new contents throughout the year and offer it to our visitors, such as a Netflix for professionals, in the form of a subscription… some with free access, some with paid access. They will be able to draw inspiration and learn throughout the year...

In this way, we are actively beginning the transformation of our business model and we will be able to generate new revenue from the marketing of services with a monthly paid subscription.

Event organisers, should they wish to secure their future, will no longer be able to rely solely on revenues from space sales and visitor ticketing, as is still the case today. And we are already anticipating this change by optimising and processing the data we have at our disposal.

Collect and manage data to comunity stakeholders

A trade fair organiser is required to collect and process a large amount of extremely relevant data. A buyer who travels to an event is very committed. They take a plane or a train, may be away from their company for several days and devote a considerable budget to visiting a show. 

At Maison&Objet, we have several ways of qualifying the profile and needs of a buyer. When a buyer pre-register online, we collect information about their activity, interests...but that's not all. We also try to get to know them better through their behaviour at the show and on the MOM platform. For example, if the buyer registers through an invitation from an exhibitor in a particular sector, we can consider that they are interested in that particular industry. If they visit several exhibitors from the same sector (data identified via the badge readers used by the exhibitors), we assume that they are interested in the product categories offered by this type of brand.

This behavioural data collected [during an event] is interesting but insufficient when deepening the relationship with the visitor because it is limited within the physical time frame of the exhibition, i.e. once or twice a year.

This is why it is so important to be present on the digital platform as well, because the customer journey is permanent. Throughout the year, it is possible to follow the behaviour of the buyer and to study precisely the brands, products and styles that interest them.

By collecting this data, we are able to offer brand and product recommendations that are in line with the identified needs of a specific buyer. In this way, brands and buyers can be brought together even more effectively, saving them time by way of personalised recommendations. Of course, nothing should prevent the random discovery of brands and products at the trade fair or on the digital platform; at a trade fair, it is often by walking around the aisles without a precise objective that buyers identify new suppliers. There must be room for chance. Long live serendipity!

Tomorrow, new territories to conquer. from trade fair management to the B2B and/or B2C marketplace. Ready to take the plunge ?

What if we went even further?

As we have seen, the organiser of trade shows is often an expert in their market, a leader in their community, an interface between supply and demand. In short, they have sometimes been playing the role of market place for a very long time, without really being aware of it. At a time when B2B or B2C marketplaces are developing with the arrival of new players who are disrupting markets with talent and significant financial resources, it is surprising to note that trade show organisers, although ideally positioned to play this role, have not committed themselves to these new territories.

The current period, which is a heavy toll on event professionals, should be an opportunity to question and examine their business model, opening up new prospects for growth and added value.The Maison&Objet teams are fully involved and committed to these future-oriented reflections and have already deployed numerous initiatives to meet these new challenges.

In the meantime, let's save the date to meet in September 2021 and discuss these new models... over a good cup of coffee.

Philippe Brocart, Managing Director of Maison&Objet