This text is taken from the Courrier de l’économie of January 9, 2023. To subscribe, click here.
Major international fairs are in agony and may never recover from COVID-19. January testifies to this. Every year, during the first days of the year, at a time not so long ago when wearing a mask in public was used to disguise oneself more than to protect oneself, there were three events eagerly awaited by a large public. The pandemic that struck in 2020 in Canada and the United States will have been the point of no return announcing the end of this New Year’s tradition…
Because everything indicates that the long-awaited “return to normal” will not take place in the world circuit of major industry conferences. Looking at the half-empty halls and phantom lineups at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) these days, it’s hard to believe that face-to-face will regain the ground lost to live webcasting.
Until 2020, technology enthusiasts flocked to the Las Vegas Convention Center for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. The world’s car enthusiasts turned instead to Detroit and its International Auto Show. At home, more regionally, the Montreal Auto Show also attracted its share of enthusiasts or future buyers.
Three years later, the Detroit show from early January is gone. The Montreal show scheduled for the end of January at the Palais des Congrès will be amputated by two of the three floors it used to occupy. On the side of the CES, its organizers ensure that it is doing very well, but on the spot, we can see that it is only a shadow of itself…
The same is happening in Europe and Asia.
Dates from another time?
Between journalist colleagues, the question arises: is this the end of these major industrial meetings? In automotive, the short answer is yes. Manufacturers have found other means of reaching consumers than inviting them to regional fairs once a year.
The major media, to which the first hours of these conferences were reserved, also have less interest in covering events about which we know almost everything in advance, the information being generally revealed on the Internet in the days preceding the conferences.
Is this the case in other industries? Hard to say: everywhere, we promise a massive return of crowds in 2023. The year is obviously still only a week old, but the first impression is that we can doubt this forecast.
In techno too, optimism reigns. On the front, anyway: the organizers said after the closing of CES on Sunday that they had received more than 115,000 visitors. Initially, 100,000 were expected. Seen from afar, on the Internet, this may seem to have been the case. On the spot, we are still looking for them, these visitors…
This report is taken from the Courrier de l’économie of January 9, 2023 and was funded with the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.The duty.