Barcelona telecoms bash lifts `hybrid' trade fair hopes
Its biggest act may have been beamed in on a screen, but a smaller, quieter “hybrid”' Mobile World Congress (MWC) has given others hope that in-person events can succeed in a pandemic.
For those who did make it to Barcelona, there were no boozy parties, with far fewer such gatherings than in previous years and the only alcohol on offer reserved for hand sanitizing.
The must-haves at last week's MWC were a negative COVID-19 test, an FFP2 face mask and a digital contact-tracing badge for the 30,000 or so who filed through its testing stations and followed a one-way traffic system to reduce infection risk. At every booth an army of volunteers religiously scanned contact tracing passes, while others were on hand at every corner reminding visitors who were not maintaining enough distance or whose face mask had slipped to follow the rules.
The events industry, which includes conferences and performances and was valued at US$1.14 trillion in 2019 by Allied Market Research, was stopped in its tracks by the pandemic.
While some business shifted online, industry participants have been working on ways to get back to normal.
One show waiting to see whether MWC succeeded in minimizing the spread of COVID-19 is Europe's biggest tech conference, Web Summit, which is pushing ahead with preparations for an in-person show in November in Lisbon.
“We're excited to see people attending tech gatherings ... MWC was the first to return in person, that's never easy,” Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave told Reuters, adding that firms would now be more interested in attending such events.
Both the limitations and appeal of a hybrid model were highlighted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk's keynote speech on his US$30 billion Starlink venture, which despite being delivered by webcam generated MWC'S biggest audience buzz.
Its organizers had billed the Barcelona show as a step toward normality ahead of its next edition in February 2022 and most attendees lauded its return despite its reduced scale and the absence of household names such as Ericsson, Sony and Nokia.
“COVID-19 challenged us. We've had to develop new health and safety protocols and a hybrid platform, but we did it,” said Mats Granryd, director general of telecoms industry association GSMA, which took big losses after cancelling last year's MWC.