Exceptional results for the 7th edition of the Viva Technology show in partnership with franceinfo, which closed its doors on Saturday June 17, Porte de Versailles in Paris. With nearly 60,000 more visitors than last year, Viva Tech has become the world’s leading event dedicated to innovation and start-ups, ahead of CES in Las Vegas.
The organizers of Viva Technology would be wrong to deprive themselves of celebrating this result, beyond all their expectations. Visitors, they expected more than 100,000. And in four days, 150,000 people visited the 2023 edition of VivaTech.
Pierre Louette, CEO of the group Les Echos – Le Parisien, happy and not so surprised co-organizer, explains this attendance as “the fruit of years of work, with more and more great speakers. This growing audience is really a great joy“. And to add: “we no longer need to go to the United States to see French and European tech, we have to come to Paris!“.
The challenge launched by Emmanuel Macron
When Pierre Louette says “in the USA”, he thinks of Las Vegas, which hosts the CES every year in January. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, early supporter of Viva Technology, had launched this challenge to the organizers: beat the CES and its 115,000 visitors 5 months ago. Challenge met ! On a strictly arithmetic level, the comparison is clear: Viva Tech takes pole position.
Will the event organized in Paris be able to hold this first place over time? The answer depends both on the CES… and on Viva Tech, which had an exceptional vintage this year. Everything changed six days before opening. On Thursday June 8, 2023, Maurice Lévy, the president of Publicis, co-organizer, receives the message he was hoping for: confirmation that Elon Musk will participate in Viva Tech.
From this moment, the 2023 edition changes dimension. The face of the boss of Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla is found, alone, on the home page of the Viva Tech site. The Elon Musk effect is instantaneous and it will propel the day of Friday: a real vacuum cleaner for visitors and media.
CES 2024: return to pre-Covid attendance?
Viva Tech can therefore now present itself as the world’s leading Tech event, at least until next January, when the CES will do everything to regain the advantage. Five months ago, the Las Vegas show was just emerging from the Covid period, and it had yet to regain its full potential.
The timing is therefore very favorable to Viva Tech, which is taking the lead, but beware: next January, if the CES continues its momentum, it could return to its pre-pandemic levels, as in January 2020 – 171,000 visitors – and recover his number 1 spot.