Shrinking IT fair

MaltaMedia editor-in-chief Martin Debattista writes about this year's Information Technology and Telecommunications (IT&T) Fair. The event, held earlier this month, is getting smaller year after year. From The Times technology supplement:

..While the organisers promoted the event, one of the major IT vendors in the country, who was a main sponsor of the same fair in the last couple of years, showered radio listeners and put up billboards declaring it has special offers but also insisting "We are not at the IT Fair". Another vendor who had been a regular exhibitor at the fair for several years adopted the same approach.

The feeling that something was wrong was confirmed when i-Tech visited the fair. The number of exhibitors at this year's edition was very low, one of the worst in the last 10 years. Two years ago i-Tech had reported that the popularity of the IT&T fair was in decline. In 2002 there were 85 exhibitors, in 2003 the number went down to 64, and in 2004 there were 53. Last year it was 50 and this year we could not check the exact figure because the organisers did not publish the official catalogue. Our count was even less than last year.

Exhibitors present this year told i-Tech that the expense to put up a stand at the IT&T fair remains hefty, running into a few thousands which are not easily recouped over five days. The biggest expense seems to be exhibition space, which in the face of desertion of exhibitors along the years, was not revised to attract more interest.

The big guns were present, as always, and they gobbled up most of the exhibitors' space. But there were several established IT companies that deserted this year's edition. Two of the four main sponsors of last year's edition were not present this year; one of them actually boasted it was not present at the fair...