By Douglas L. Ducate CEM, CMP
“It is amazing what man can come to believe when he thinks too long alone.”
William E. Wickenden (1882-1947)
When I was asked to share my views on the future of the exhibition business after COVID-19, I questioned why me? I do not have a crystal ball that lets me see into the future. The response was: “What you do have is a wealth of information about the industry and many years of experience that include good times and bad. That makes your opinion more valuable than those that lack that experience.” And it is true that I have experienced a lot since I produced my first event … the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Houston in September 1968.
Not since the Spanish Flu2 more than 100 years ago has the U.S. seen anything like COVID-19, even though it is our 13th epidemic since 1981. The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) produced a webinar that identifies those epidemics and the financial and exhibition industry recovery periods for each.
But this epidemic became a pandemic. A pandemic is an epidemic that spreads from a specific country or region to multiple countries or even multiple continents. And that certainly is what COVID-19 did with lightning speed and deadly force. We have never seen anything like it in our lifetimes and have struggled to know how best to react to it and stop the spread.
As this is written, we in the USA are believed to be reaching the peak and as such are beginning to examine how best to emerge from the shelter-in-place orders that blanket the country. Most experts now seem to agree this will be a three-phase process.
Phase 1 is the lock down we are in now.
Phase 2 may be called the “semi-normal” or something similar.
Phase 3 will simply be the “new normal,” whatever that may be.
We know the impact of Phase 1 has been to shut down the exhibition business along with most other businesses. Shutting down the holding of exhibitions impacted not only the organizers but the destinations, facilities, companies that provide services to the events and the air and ground transportation systems that transport personnel and goods. Given the incredibly wide impact of the industry, one would think it would be a candidate for an early restart. But as discussions begin about opening the country back up and “rolling out” Phase 2, exhibitions, meetings, and events will certainly not lead the return and in fact may not even be part of the second phase. Moving from social distancing to large gatherings will likely be the last step in establishing the “new normal.”
The exhibition business is not a bell cow. It is fragmented into industry sectors, and events identify more closely with the industries they serve than with the exhibition industry. There is no single voice for the industry and no giant company to lead the industry. So, if the industry is not going to lead, to whom should we be looking to try to understand the likely future of the industry? Read more of Mr. Ducate's article...