Testing times for trade shows

Given it has been some 20 months since I last visited a trade show, I had almost forgotten what they were like. At Opti Munich in January 2020, Covid-19 was still confined, officially at least, to China. B ut by late February, the situation had become so serious in Europe that Mido was cancelled just days before it was due to take place. We all know what happened after that.

The Covid-19 pandemic has driven a train through the notion of large gatherings of people, especially indoors, and one of hardest hit sectors has been trade events. While there may have been lots of appetite to visit indoor events and large gatherings for recreation, the idea of doing so for work events was not high up on most people’s lists. But the alternatives, namely webinars and ‘virtual’ meetings and tradeshows have not really cut the mustard when it comes to frame buying, especially when it comes to searching out new product that keeps practice inventory looking fresh.