A bad trend has emerged recently. Events are canceled one by one, and the companies that were supposed to participate in them lose money, thrash their plans, shift the start of sales of their products and suffer reputation losses. So we have already witnessed the cancellation of MWC 2020, the Geneva Motor Show and some other thematic events. Exhibitions are generally a separate topic, since they are already on the verge of losing interest in them, and such shocks can only push them to the edge of the abyss. Another thing is the Google I / O conference, which was supposed to take place, but was also canceled. At least the physical, most interesting part of it. What's next and what does it promise us?
Google I / O will not be the same this year.
Why are exhibitions canceled?
For those who don't know, the coronavirus has been raging around the world in the past couple of months. At the time of this writing, there are already more than 90,000 infected people in the world and more than 3,000 deaths from the consequences of infection. Maybe the percentage of deaths is not so high, but the virus is not fully understood, and the scale of its spread frightens not only WHO, but also governments and event organizers who do not want to risk and gather tens of thousands of people under one roof.
Against the background of all this, exhibitions are canceled one by one, like balloons bursting in the prize dash of a park. But in the beginning, large exhibitions were canceled, and now even local conferences, albeit significant ones.
Google I / O 2020 canceled
The only good news is that the event is not completely canceled, but only its physical part, which was supposed to take place in Mountain View and for which tickets have already been raffled off. All this was done on the basis of WHO recommendations and the company's own concerns.
Now this creative poster has become history.
At the moment, alternative options for holding the event are being looked for, since it is a little impractical to cancel it completely. And the company has already ceased to adhere to the original dates of the conference. Let me remind you that it was supposed to take place on May 12-14. Perhaps the dates will be postponed to a later date.
In addition to I / O 2020, Google has revised some of its other events. Some of them were held or will be held online, and the rest will be canceled altogether.
Everything was so beautiful.
Don't worry that Google won't be able to host such a large event online. They have everything they need as the conference is streamed annually on YouTube. Also, all the necessary information can be found on the event website.
What's in store for the exhibition?
Above, I wrote that exhibitions may be on the verge of extinction after what happened this year. This makes a certain sense and should not be underestimated.
First of all, it should be understood that while the interest of manufacturers of electronics and other consumer goods is quite large, but it is rapidly falling. It is big due to the fact that at exhibitions you can more fully show your new product. Yes, you can catch up with hundreds of journalists, show them a novelty and wait until they write about it. The problem is that these will be ordinary walkthrough articles or reviews that people who are far from technology, but still potential buyers, may not notice.
Just a few days before the start, the Geneva Motor Show was canceled.
The exhibitions are attended not only by hundreds and thousands of journalists who will also write about the new product, but also business representatives who can conclude a major contract, and ordinary technology lovers. All this greatly increases the audience. Even those who do not follow thematic publications are still more likely to hear about new products.
From this point of view, everything is good and the exhibition has a great and bright future, but the problem is that distribution channels are developing and advertising is becoming targeted. As a result, a situation may soon arise in which exhibitions can be compared to shouts in the street, and other types of advertising – with an appeal to someone who really wants to buy a particular product.
So the prospects of exhibitions become less rosy and unnecessary shocks in this matter are not needed, because a chain reaction can go on and even events that seem to be unrelated to each other will pull each other along and there will be no more exhibitions. I would not like …
What other events will be canceled this year
The nearest major event from the world of gadgets should be the presentation of the new Huawei P40 Pro. Usually the presentation of smartphones of this line looks very large-scale and hundreds of journalists and bloggers from all over the world gather on a large platform. If it goes on like this, the presentation could go online, similar to how the company recently showed its new laptops and tablets on the days when MWC 2020 was supposed to take place.
It is not yet fully understood, but a lot can be canceled. Even simple presentations including Apple.
A couple of months after that, there should be a conference Apple WWDC 2020, which is held annually for several days and during which new versions of the operating system and some other chips are shown.
That's not all. Then there will be a presentation of Samsung Galaxy Note, a new one iPhone, and there may be events planned that we do not even know about. All this looks very sad and I want to believe that the situation will calm down, doctors will find a way to resist the virus, and large companies, whose events we are waiting for, will be able to find a way to hold them. Even online. The main thing is to be interesting. Is not it? Throw in the comments options of how you see the future fate of exhibitions and how, in your opinion, manufacturers will act with upcoming presentations and conferences.