For the first time in about 18 months, I have booked some work travel and, I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, it will be good to see industry contacts again and report on trends from an exhibition for the journal. However, the idea of being inside an exhibition hall meeting hundreds of different people from around the world, fills me with worry. It has got me thinking, not for the first time, about the future of industry exhibitions.
Staff in optometric practices all around the UK have had to park their own fears during the pandemic for the sake of their patients. I’m not sure whether they’ll do the same any time soon to see some frames and earn CET points at a large exhibition.
So, what will happen? Will people, like me, take campervans to Paris and stay in the grounds in an effort to avoid mass transit and the centre of the city? It seems rather unlikely, even if it does add an element of adventure to an otherwise routine work trip. More likely will be that optical industry professionals demonstrate their concerns about travel and infection control at large scale events through good old-fashioned non-attendance.
There has to be a middle ground, but it’s difficult to predict what that will look like in the short term. I recently had a meeting with the Association for Independent Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians about its conference on October 9. The CET looks like a gold mine for anyone that needs points before end of the cycle in December and a panel discussion and workshop on migrating from NHS care is about as relevant to the profession as is it gets. It’s the sort of event that, if I were a registered ECP, would tempt me to sample what professional conferences look like in a post-Covid world. Big enough to be relevant, but small enough to be safe.