Hot on the heels of the junked telecoms junket in Barcelona, events are being abandoned quicker than you can update Google calendars. Thursday’s toll: Hong Kong’s Rugby Sevens, a handful of Relx-organised exhibitions and even public Masses.
Coronavirus is doing what technology was supposed to do: disrupt the jolly networking of physical conferences with more efficient, environment-friendly video versions.
Some will demur, but conferences are not all they are cracked up to be, at least for those who host them. The McCormick Place Convention Center, America’s biggest, has lost progressively more money in each of the past three years and is forecast to keep doing so for the next three too.