Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
The organisers of Integrated Systems Europe have moved #ISE2021 from February to June 1-4, 2021.
The event was due to take place at Gran Via, part of the Fira de Barcelona exhibition complex in Spain, February 2-5, 2021 and would, of course, have been the first time that the trade show had taken place in Barcelona.
Exhibitors were told over the last few days that the organisers would be trying to re-schedule the event for sometime in the summer. After we were first to break the news, on Monday September 14, 2020 at 18:25 (in this post actually), the organisers had no choice but to ‘officially’ inform the rest of the press (yes folks, a well planned PR strategy once again) later on Monday evening.
The spin to the press which they all ate up (why wouldn’t they, they all receive a lot of advertising from ISE) was firmly ‘this is a postponement’ and not a ‘cancellation’ but wording aside, I don’t think anyone has really thought this through as there are mixed messages everywhere.
In the first official statement from the organisers on Tuesday, a postponement to ‘summer’ turned into a firm date – well at least a firm month, that being June and then another announcement on Wednesday, finally gave the new dates June 1-4, 2021.
- The big question on everyone’s lips now is how will this new date in June for #ISE2021 work alongside #InfoComm21 which is still confirmed as taking place June 12-16, 2021 in Orlando, FL?
- As we saw this year when organisers thought all of this would blow over quickly, most of the 2020 events that were re-scheduled did not happen even when they were postponed to Q3 and Q4 2020. We calculate that over 90% of events so ‘moved’ did not actually take place. We question whether an additional three months will make any difference to exhibitors deciding whether or not to take part. The risks are unlikely to diminish quickly in that time.
In response to our question #1 above, ISE’s Mike Blackman told AV Magazine “We see the shows being more regional in the first part of 2021. We realise that a lot of the American companies who participate in the show from the USA will have difficulties in participating or have concerns about participating. At this stage they are concerned about travel. That’s one of the biggest issues, and the same goes the other way around for European companies who won’t be able to get to the US.”
He also said that ISE is not planning a one-off virtual event at the time of the postponed show in February but monthly virtual events, labelled RISE DIGITAL, to support customers, we quote “From now until whatever the new date is there will be regular online events on a monthly basis to help give a platform to our community so we’re not just talking about February. We’re looking at the resource. We’re talking to our partners to see how they can participate in that to make sure we can make a good virtual offer between now and the show.”
This is big news for the event industry, sad news for Barcelona (it’s only a matter of time now before #MWC2021, due to take place March 1-4, 2021, is also cancelled) and its a significant shock to the AV industry.
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