Trade show events, from live to digital: towards the development of new competencies

Until recently, trade shows and fairs were the primary marketing events in Europe, events for which companies allocated a large slice of their corporate budget in order to establish “live contacts” with the market. In the last few years, all this has changed because the events market has been ‘invaded’ by an array of formats and players, which have not only cast doubt upon the leading status of trade fairs, but are forcing a convergence of competitors and worlds never before imagined. Concerned about this, the players take a closer look at the differences between traditional and new approaches, between their competencies and those of the newcomers. And they are asking themselves if this is a threat, or an opportunity for future business. To answer this question, this paper analyzes the primary drivers of change. These are identified as pairs of opposites: collective-individual; informationexperience; local-global; physical-multimedia; opposites that also highlight key differences in the skills required to organize various kinds of events.