What the Shutdown of the Pioneers Conference means for Europe's startup scene

I have been a frequent guest to Pioneers and with their CEO @Oliver Csendes and his team we have a long-standing relation of mutual respect for each other's work, both @EIT Digital and the @Startup Heatmap Europe. Now, Pioneers is closing down their flagship event (https://tech.eu/brief/no-more-pioneers-2020/) and I want to share a few of my thoughts:

Pioneers did many things right

Not only did Pioneers always feel like "still the right size" of an event and the right choice of people, but also did the numbers show it was top notch in several aspects:

In the 2018 Startup Heatmap Report we showed that Pioneers was in fact the most international tech conference in Europe with >80% international followers on social media, reaching substantial audiences in 10 countries

Pioneers was one of the few conferences able to rank high (in this case 3rd in terms of marketshare) in two European regions: Western Europe and Central Eastern Europe. Proving that it was a great connector of diverse ecosystems.

Bringing together such a diverse crowd, Pioneers did not shy away to also go after the big technology topics - in fact it is probably the only conference where you would hear as much about Health & BioTech as about FinTech in the same space. An analysis of the social chatter around Pioneers showed these were the hottest topics for participants:

1. Health & BioTech 27%
2. FinTech 20%
3. AI & Data 17 %

But reality is tough...

This ambitious setup was great for people believing in a pan-European Deep Tech ecosystem - it was in fact everything we dreamt of. However, maybe it was too good to be true and too far from reality.

I remember my feeling that the crowd during two last editions decrease and discussing with many other participants the fact that end of May is an extremely crowded time for tech conferences in Europe. One year there were virtually 5 events on the same days... VivaTech, Latitude59, TNW Conference, Webit and Pioneers. So competition is fierce

In our very latest survey of the European tech community and their favorite startup places, we also asked about the best tech conferences. Pioneers would have reached the Top 5, proving their strong value proposition. However the business model for Pioneers was build around smaller events and more niche topics. It does not need insider knowledge to see that this would propel costs and eat up margins very fast. Taken into consideration that many events in the startup world are sustained by government funds aimed to promote regional economic growth, I assume, this model of a pan-European deep tech community gathering around a series of small scale physical events did have a harder time to reach break-even.

It is disappointing for me to see an important event series disappear - but what does it really mean for Europe's tech scene. Some bold conclusions I draw for the sake of discussion:

1) CEE founders will have a harder time to connect to Western Europe as Pioneers was a great avenue for them

2) Wolves Summit, Bits & Pretzels and TOA will be most likely to capture the marketshares of Pioneers

3) Vienna will be struggeling to position as the connector between West and CEE. Their biggest hopes are now on speedinvest's and capital300's activities.

4) Poland with its growing hubs in Warsaw, Krakow and Gdansk will benefit from the weakened position of their brand competitor in CEE

5) Ljubljana, Bratislava and Brno will suffer from less attention coming to the region.

How do you view this situation? Do you have a different opinion?