Yesterday, Ifema confirmed the cancellation of SIMO 2008.
According to statements made by its general director, Santiago Quiroga, to EFE, the reason was economic, as the absence of large companies endangered the profitability of the event.
The director did not comment on the reasons that lead large companies not to go to SIMO, but I think there are basically two:
- In times of crisis, it is an unnecessary frivolity to undertake all the setup that attending SIMO entails (compared to the result obtained)
- The trade fair model in the digital age is beginning to become obsolete, especially when we are talking about a trade fair dedicated to technology and the Internet.
In recent years it was already quite sad to go to SIMO and see how fewer and fewer companies were attending this fair as exhibitors, and on the other hand, to see how large corporations completely dominated the spaces, encouraging small companies to stop attending. The public, faced with the limited variety of exhibitors and the few innovations, also decided not to show up at the Campo de las Naciones.
In reality, it is a negative feedback process caused by a purely financial approach to the event. SIMO management has ignored until the last moment (there was only one month left until SIMO 2008) that without exhibitors there is no public and without public there are even fewer exhibitors… even if HP or Microsoft fill the emptying space.
My experience as an exhibitor dates back to SIMO 2000, it lasted 4 years and was with SoloStocks.comThe truth is that although travelling to Madrid, setting up the stand and leaving a team in Madrid for a week was quite expensive, the worst thing was not this, but also having to let yourself be fooled by the abusive cost of all the services contracted at the fair. I remember an ADSL for which they charged us more than 100 euros for a week of use, and I also remember having contracted a space and then arriving there and discovering that due to a lack of exhibitors they had closed my area and had placed me somewhere else, without my prior consent, and that location being worse than the previous one. A clear example of poor trade fair management.
As the Internet was just starting to take off, it made sense to be present at this event, to make ourselves known and also to show website users that there were people behind a dotcom. So the investment was worth it. But once we achieved a certain online popularity, it was no longer justified to attend SIMO as an exhibitor, and we went to Madrid just to see how things were going. These last 2 years, not even that was worth my effort.
So: Goodbye SIMO, maybe one day they will know how to reinvent you again.
