Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (IFA) is one of the largest tradeshows of the years, and it usually takes place at the beginning of September. IFA 2020 will happen, but not the way you think, and the current outbreak is the reason why.
IFA 2020 will happen with an “innovative new concept”
The organizers went to Twitter to let people know what’s going on. It was officially confirmed that IFA 2020 will happen, but with an “innovative new concept”. The organizers are forced to make it happen in a different way due to recent decisions by the Berlin government.
Berlin government decided to “ban all events with more than 5,000 participants until October 24”. That makes it impossible to organize IFA in its regular form, as there are way more participants involved.
The organizers did anticipate this development, however, and have been discussing a range of alternative concepts. One thing seems to be obvious, we won’t be getting a physical event this time around.
There is, of course, a chance that the organizers will somehow limit the number of participants by separating the event in different places, but that’s highly unlikely. It’s more likely we’ll get all the information in written form, or perhaps livestreamed somehow (which sounds impossible to organize).
All in all, the written form is the most likely outcome. It remains to be seen how will that affect the presenters, though, and how many companies will end up being involved.
IFA will hopefully find a better way to organize all this, but we’re skeptical due to the whole situation. The organizers will hopefully share more information soon.
MWC 2020 got cancelled entirely, it was supposed to take place in February
As most of you already know, the recent outbreak did affect MWC 2020 as well. MWC 2020 in Barcelona got cancelled, entirely. That created a really big mess back in February, but it was a necessary move.
The organizers of IFA are warned upfront, they’re aware of the situation, and what are their options. That gives us hope that they’ll find a way to make the tradeshow happen somehow.
As most of you already know, Google I/O 2020 got cancelled due to the outbreak as well. Well, it at least got cancelled in its usual form. That information was published at the beginning of March.
Google I/O will still happen, but not in a physical form. Google will go on stage and talk about everything it wanted to talk about during the show, but without any participants outside of the company.
The company will livestream Google I/O 2020, so, for those of you who end up watching from home, your experience will be quite similar as last year. It remains to be seen what will happen with IFA 2020, though, stay tuned.