As Mobile World Congress 2021 unfolds with pandemic-induced reduced attendance, down roughly two thirds from the last per-pandemic year, most of us wonder how the recovery process will unfold.
The practical immediate metric for most of us will be how soon attendance returns to the last pre-pandemic year.
That all makes sense for the near term. But one logical question we must ask about maturing markets--in connectivity or elsewhere--is how demand for exhibitions and trade shows changes over time.
Fragmented markets create value for such events, as they aggregate buyers so sellers can affordably reach them.
In 2016 the NCTA gave up its annual trade show, for example. In 2010 Supercomm, the former big U.S. telco show, was canceled. In both cases, industry maturity made the meetings expendable. CTIA, once the big U.S. mobile industry show, declined to the point where it essentially became a GSMA event in 2017.
The point is that big annual industry trade shows only make sense when markets are young and fragmented. Once consolidation has happened, the logic for holding them goes away, as sellers know exactly how to reach their buyers.
So it is not unreasonable to speculate about whether pandemic-induced travel bans and trade show cancellations will, in some cases, accelerate thinking about their value, in markets that are becoming more concentrated. Value, arguably, will remain high in yet-fragmented markets.
Such processes unfold over decades, but are a clear pattern. Consolidated markets have less need of big trade shows.
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