COVID-19 forces trade show cancellations… but one show expected to do well

As the world grapples with containing the spread of COVID 19 – the coronavirus - planners of mega international trade shows, carefully navigating through the COVID-19 crisis, face the difficult choice of either postponing or cancelling such events as buyers and exhibitors keep dropping out amid fears of their foreign jaunts possibly becoming a health nightmare.

This gloom-and-doom thinking is forcing cancellation of many international events. Germany, the “land of trade fairs and exhibitions”, illustrates the point. The world reputed International Tourism Bourse (ITB), to be held from March 4 to 8 in the German capital Berlin, and the world’s largest platform for the travel and tourism industry, was cancelled just a few days before its start.
The ITB, as the organizer Messe Berlin explained, was cancelled because of the tight restrictions and individual questioning of exhibitors and visitors imposed by the local health authorities in Berlin. The expected 10,000 exhibitors and about 160,000 visitors would have posed a Herculean challenge for the organizer.
Christian Goke, Messe Berlin’s CEO, said it was with a “heavy heart that we must now come to terms with the cancellation of the ITB Berlin 2020”.
Wolf-Dieter Wolf, chairman of the supervisory board of Messe Berlin, recalled that not once in the 54-year history of the event had ITB Berlin and Messe Berlin experienced a similar situation.
However, the high-profiled ITB Berlin is not the only casualty that has fallen to COVID-19. Other international shows have also been cancelled, including Munich’s CON-STRUCTION, RENOVATION, REFURBISHMENT trade fair, the Cyber Security Tech Summit, scheduled to take place on March 11 in Bonn, while METAV 2020 (the metal-processing technology show) to be held in Duesseldorf from March 10 to 13, has been postponed.
However, there are also some silver linings in the dark pandemic clouds hovering over the international trade show landscape.
This MEDICA 2020, to be held from November 16-19, 2020 in Duesseldorf, is the world’s largest medical forum, showcasing a wide range of products – from medical equipment, devices and accessories (including protective face masks, hand sanitizing liquids, medical gloves, syringes/needles, etc.) to robots programmed for medical duties. The last MEDICA show, held in November 2019, attracted 5,500 exhibitors from 69 countries and over 120,000 experts and specialized trade visitors.
According to the organizing Messe Duesseldorf, the planning stage for MEDICA 2020 is making headway and more than 5,500 exhibitors from some 70 nations are expected to attend, as of early March. Indeed, MEDICA’s “sister event”, COMPAMED 2020, which runs concurrently at the Duesseldorf fair grounds and is dedicated to medical technology, has received an overwhelmingly positive response.
Some German experts – they assume that since MEDICA 2020 will be held in November, the COVID-19 would have possibly been controlled by then – expect this event to be an instant hit generating unprecedented demand for medical innovations, tools and devices, protective face masks, hand sanitizers and other requisites. Demand for pharmaceutical products, medical devices and accessories Is expected to soar, spurring many companies to go on the fast track to innovate and produce new and better products,
Many countries are investing in providing medical relief and helping their populations overcome the pain and suffering because they realize a worsening health situation can cause huge economic and trade losses besides cutting off the country from the outside world.
The MEDICA 2020 could possibly become the “show of all shows”, a hyperbole in vogue to suggest a bullish business atmosphere.