Posted by
Barry Siskind
UFILive Community Manager
This title sounds like the set up for a punch line, yet it’s anything but. In fact a trade fair’s death doesn’t preclude resurrection.
One such example is Comdex which was once billed as the largest high tech fair with over 1.2 million square feet of exhibit space. After 20 years dominating its industry it lost focus and died.
Now under the care of United Business Media of the UK, Comdex is coming back to life and going virtual. The launch date is November 16 and 17, 2010. Can this be the beginning of a new era? We’ll keep a close watch on their progress.
A very interesting question for many of us in the industry will be whether successful virtual events will spawn ‘real’ live fairs. If UBM gets it right and Comdex works as a virtual exhibition, will there be pressure from participants to meet as well in the real world and, if so, what will that meeting look and feel like?
We can probably be pretty sure that it won’t be a mega, all singing, all dancing affair in Vegas. But I’d love to know what it will look like…and I say “will” because I’m pretty confident that something ‘real world’ will emerge from this. I’m just not quite sure what at the moment. I wonder if anybody else has any ideas…
The E3 Show (Electronic Gaming) died and has come back as well.