Exhibitions going virtual as coronavirus spreads
FRANKFURT, Germany — Fine wines and hipster gin. Hunting rifles and knives. Contemporary paintings and million-dollar sports cars. They’re all marketed at trade events that are quickly going dark across the globe due to the new coronavirus — and taking with them sales opportunities that may be difficult to make up.
Some companies are taking their shows online with virtual events they stream from their headquarters to reach customers anyway.
But marketing experts and executives warn that there is no substitute for face-to-face contact with potential clients, as exhibition companies try to total up the losses being suffered by an industry that also pumps billions into hotels, restaurants and cabdriver’s wallets.
The Geneva International Motor Show resorted to putting automakers’ product unveilings and news conferences online Tuesday after this year’s show was canceled. BMW presented its sleek i4 electric concept car at a digital news conference from Munich, and competitors Daimler and Volkswagen held their own online events.
The Geneva show was canceled after local authorities barred gatherings of more than 1,000 people to halt the spread of the virus, which has sickened more than 98,000 people globally and led to more than 3,300 deaths as of Thursday. While some car companies were already trying online presentations before the virus in an effort to expand their reach to social media, there is no real substitute to seeing a product in person or meeting people in the industry.
“It’s not just about purchases. For many products it is also about reinforcing a kind of community building,” said Gernot Gehrke, professor of management and event-industry marketing at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hannover.
Trade shows, which can bring sales long after the event, are “a point of contact in a customer journey, if you like, that aims at a stable relationship to customers, and also to people and organizations that might become customers.”
They are also big business. Exhibitors pay in advance to book space and lose their money on such last-minute cancellations caused by health concerns. The Geneva auto show was expected to generate $250 million for the wider city area. “This is a dramatic loss for everyone,” said Oliver Rihs, managing director of the Geneva show.
Trade fairs are a tradition in Germany, where some 160 to 180 are held every year, reaping $16 billion from visitors and exhibitors as well as providing 230,000 jobs.
Gamers Developers Conference for video game developers in San Francisco was postponed recently after a number of companies dropped out, including Amazon, Sony, Facebook, Electronic Arts, Unity and Epic. Facebook is planning to go forward with GDC-related announcements via video, online Q&A sessions and other digital formats. But smaller game developers and software companies can’t make up for the loss of exposure of the March 1620 event.