What to Expect at a Post-COVID-19 Industry Conference

COVID-19 hit during the start of tradeshow and conference season, subsequently impacting a wide range of industries. While some quickly transitioned to virtual conferences, others canceled or postponed their events.

Conferences serve as a vital aspect of business for the technology and manufacturing industries. They offer opportunities to announce new ventures, showcase new products, discover new vendors to work with, network with potential clients, and scope out trends. Their cancellation impacted business plans and cost companies substantial money in both lost investments and missed networking opportunities.

Now, as we begin phasing in reopenings and planning future events, here are some projections for how industry conferences, fairs, and tradeshows may look going forward at least for the short term.

Smaller Headcounts, Bigger Players

Conferences will likely be on a smaller scale for three reasons:

1. Many people will still be leery of traveling and being in large groups, so fewer people will register.
2. More than $1 billion was lost when big-name tech events like SXSW and E3 were canceled because of the pandemic. Having been burned by massive cancellations and venue closures due to COVID-19, conference organizers likely will be more cautious about sinking funds into large events.
3. Social distancing measures will necessitate fewer people packed into a room.

As a consequence, those who do attend upcoming conferences, fairs, and tradeshows will likely be upper management and people most essential to sales. This could mean that they become more exclusive.

Greater Focus on Regional Events

Hand in hand with conferences becoming smaller, they’ll likely become more regional at least in the short term.

Social Distancing Measures

Currently, states and even cities are all in various phases of reopening. If you’re participating in an out-of-town conference, it may be helpful to do a little research to see what safety precautions are being taken so that you can be prepared to follow suit.

You may encounter the following:

• More breakouts, and fewer large meetings.
• Chairs spread out or certain chairs in rows blocked off.
• Auxiliary rooms or even offsite halls for watching big-name speakers without all being packed into one large room.
• Clear partitions at booths, separating the exhibitor from the attendee.
• Less handshaking, and perhaps alternatives to handshaking such as elbow bumps or nodding.
• People wearing gloves.
• People wearing face masks, and, depending on when and where the venue is held, attendees may be required to wear face masks.
• Temperature checks and questions related to recent travel.

Increased Sanitizing

Exhibition halls have for a while now featured hand-sanitizing stations, and the number of these stations is likely to increase. Additionally, group tables for breakouts and exhibitor booths may have bottles of their own. Hand sanitizer is the new breath mint.

Product Demonstrations

Hands-on access to products will be much more limited. To minimize the transference of germs, vendors will be more likely to demonstrate the quality and use of the product themselves.

This may accelerate the adoption of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). These will allow viewers to experience the product without touching it.

Hybrid Approach

Because for a while there will be fewer people attending in person, conferences will take a hybrid approach of offering a combination of in-person and virtual events. Sometimes these will be at different times, and considered separate events, and other times they will be simultaneous.

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