Booked flights to Infosecurity Europe 2021? About that...
Physical events remain hugely challenging...
Infosecurity Europe 2021's planned physical event at Olympia London on July 13-15 has been cancelled with less than a month's notice, after the British government delayed lifting final Covid-19 restrictions.
The event, run by Reed Exhibitions, attracted some 15,000+ attendees and 400+ exhibitors for its last physical event in 2019. Infosecurity Europe 2021 will now run as a virtual exhibition and conference instead.
The physical event had 181 exhibitors booked in, according to its website. Reed Exhibitions in 2020 also held off cancelling longer than many other organisations in the hope that they could make a physical event happen, ultimately cancelling Infosecurity Europe 2020 eight weeks before the event was due to take place, in favour of a digital-only event.
See also: 6 free cybersecurity tools your IT team should know
Nicole Mills, Exhibition Director at Infosecurity Group said in an emailed cancellation notice: “Infosecurity Europe has always been the place where the cybersecurity industry’s finest minds come together to share knowledge, ideas and experiences. While we can’t yet meet in person, we’ll still be bringing the community together this July for a digital only event."
She added: "We’ve run two very successful virtual conferences over the past year, and we’re ready to deliver a stimulating and insightful programme of content, with plenty of opportunities to discuss, debate and discover the best ways to protect organisations and get ahead of cyber-criminals.”
You can register for the virtual event here.
Many in the events world remain hugely ambivalent about the viability of real-world events through 2021 -- with government policy vacillation making planning even more challenging. One outlier is Mobile World Congress Barcelona, returning in less than two weeks, with organisers GSMA saying they expect to attract some 35,000 in-person attendees to the Fira Gran Via, with one third of all attendees to be virtual. That's down from the 100,000+ people who typically attend.
