Mike Blackman (ISE): "If we can stay in Barcelona forever, we will"

Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), the world's largest audiovisual industry fair, was one of the last massive events organized in 2020. In last year's edition, held in Amsterdam from February 10 to 14, a storm had a greater impact on the attendance of congress participants than the pandemic, which was beginning to be noticed but had not yet closed airports or prevented mobility. Despite everything, ISE 2020 gathered almost 52,000 attendees, fewer than the 80,000 in 2019. From the current perspective, fifty thousand attendees is still a figure that even today would set off all alarms due to the persistence of the coronavirus crisis.

"It will not be the last pandemic we will experience, and that is why we have to try to adapt," defends ISE executive director Mike Blackman, in an interview with The New Barcelona Post. Blackman has spent a few days in Barcelona, after announcing that the grand premiere of this fair in the Catalan capital was postponed until next year, precisely because of the uncertainty that covid still causes. "If we learn nothing from this pandemic, then we will have done it wrong. The best option is to gain experience and see how we can do business and continue with our lives," he emphasizes.

One of the lessons that ISE organizers have learned is that their exhibitors are asking them to wait a little longer to bring thousands of people together again in a closed space. "They want to meet in person and do business again, but they are worried about traveling outside their country's borders," he explains. Specifically, before making the final decision, the audiovisual congress asked attendees if they were willing to come to Barcelona: 20% were going to come anyway; another 20% were not going to do it in any way, and 60% did not know what to do.

The position of this large majority of attendees depended on factors that ISE could not control, such as whether the vaccination rate would be sufficient to guarantee a good epidemic situation in summer or whether restrictions on free travel would have been lifted. The deadline that the organization had set was the beginning of March, giving exhibitors a three-month margin to cancel their participation without incurring economic losses, taking into account that attending a fair like this costs between two and three million for large companies.

Small and local events to build trust

Given all these doubts, the organizers of ISE decided to opt for a middle-ground solution, planning four small-scale congresses in the main markets for the audiovisual industry and in Barcelona, its new home. "If we can't bring people to see ISE, we bring ISE to them," he reasons. The new proposal has received "enormous support" and the attending companies are already working with the idea of sending their local teams, wherever is closest to them.

London, Munich, Amsterdam, and Barcelona will be the available options, but Blackman assures that the Catalan capital will be the favorite, especially for the American public, if they can fly here without problems. "If they have to come to Europe, they will want to come to Barcelona," he assures.

It is not yet finalized how much space it will occupy in the Gran Via venue of Fira de Barcelona. What is clear is that it will have to be enough to maintain a safe distance between attendees and to be able to test them, a system that Blackman himself tested this Thursday at the Llotja de Mar, in an event organized by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce to demonstrate that in-person attendance can be safely recovered at this type of event.

What can be seen at ISE?

At the reduced fair on June 1 and 2 in Barcelona, there will be product presentations that have been delayed in recent months and it will mean a return to networking and visiting stands, all in a reduced format. "It will be a small taste," says the executive.

Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Logitech, or Sony are some of the large companies that usually attend ISE, but there are others more specialized such as Kramer and Creston. All of them offer audiovisual solutions for issues such as the background music heard in a hotel bar, systems to regulate lighting, or the necessary equipment for a conference room. A sector clearly on the rise after the pandemic and, therefore, the companies dedicated to it will want to find answers about new trends at this fair.

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Barcelona and ISE, a long-term relationship

The fair led by Blackman chose Barcelona to relocate after Amsterdam became too small for them. "In the last three editions, we had to put stands outside the venue. We became the largest congress in Amsterdam and the Netherlands. And, finally, we had no more space to grow," the executive director recalls.

In choosing a new location, Barcelona stood out among other European capitals, thanks to its exhibition capacity, air connections, public transport, and hotel network. It only failed in one aspect: language. ISE attendees were concerned about whether they could easily communicate with Barcelonans, but Blackman knew that this issue had already been overcome. "The first times I came, more than twenty years ago, language was a problem. But now it's completely different," he emphasizes.

He himself had experienced it, no less, the day after the terrorist attack on La Rambla. He had arrived in Barcelona with his family for tourism and, aware that it was a difficult day, they hired a taxi driver to take them on a tour. "He took us everywhere, stopped and waited for us while we visited. And he explained everything about the city he loved in excellent English. He convinced me that things had changed," he recalls.

Blackman and his family were in Barcelona the day after the 2018 attacks

While awaiting its debut in the Catalan capital, the fair also wants to leave a legacy in the city beyond the four days the event lasts, as Mobile already does through the Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital). ISE wants to explain what the audiovisual industry does to everyone, not just congress attendees. For example, through programs in schools, with the aim of awakening the desire to work in this sector in the youngest. To see how they can do it, they are in contact with the Llum del Poblenou festival and the Audiovisual Cluster of Catalonia.