Simon Jones: Fair trade

Exhibition companies and trade shows across all sectors have been among the hardest hit industries during the Covid-19 pandemic, so with a full ‘season’ of optical events completed, how does the land lie in our little corner of the events sphere?

Rather quiet, I would suggest.

Major events, like Opti in Munich, Milan’s Mido and Vision Expo East in New York were all significantly down on visitor numbers – broadly speaking, a third of their average attendance figures. Seemingly bucking this trend was 100% Optical, which saw a ‘record’ number of visitors.

Trips to Paris or Milan for trade shows used to be events for the whole practice team, but that hasn’t been the case for any of the events I’ve attended since Silmo in September, 2021. Instead, only the decision makers in practices have attended, which creates the paradox of happy exhibitors who still take plenty of orders, and disgruntled event organisers that use the volume of delegates to attract new exhibitors. Hopefully, this particular issue will resolve itself as the coronavirus picture continues to improve.