IFA to Stage Shorter Physical Show With Far Fewer Attendees, No Consumers
IFA 2020 organizers are confident conditions Sept. 3-5 will permit a vastly downsized in-person event at the Messe Berlin fairgrounds, limited to 4,000 people daily, with no consumers and a three-day run instead of the usual six, they said at…
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a virtual news conference Tuesday. The show will have “virtual opportunities” for those who can’t or don’t want to travel to Berlin, and would move to an all-virtual format as a “fallback” if the pandemic worsens, said IFA Berlin Executive Director Jens Heithecker. “We cannot simply shut down the global economy and tell everybody to come back next year,” said Heithecker. “After all the event cancellations the past five months, our industry urgently needs the platform where it can showcase its innovation, so that it can recover and rebound.” Berlin is one of the few capital cities in the world to be “relatively unaffected” by COVID-19, said Heithecker. IFA consulted with local health authorities, and “together we have agreed on a safe and workable solution” for the 2020 show, he said. The gathering and CES often compete for bragging rights about which has more attendees, who in normal years number far above 100,000.