Exhibitions : refuelling the economy
Ruth Carter talks to Charlie McCurdy , chief executive of Informa Markets , about reassessing the exhibition landscape ahead of a return to face-to-face events
Navigating the largest exhibition company in the world through 2020 and the fallout into 2021 is no mean feat and so , when Charlie McCurdy , chief executive of Informa Markets , talks about ‘ carrying scars like the rest of the industry ’, you can assume he isn ’ t joking . Informa was no different from any other exhibition company and , despite various injections of cash , still faced a challenging 2020 . Rumours abound about their future position in the UK and that , coupled with the significant changes that Reed made to its UK structure , has made some a little nervous about the long-term role of the UK as a key player in the exhibition world .
Addressing the extremely large and thorny elephant in the room , McCurdy talks about the importance of the UK market to Informa . As you would expect from someone in his position , McCurdy remains inscrutable , playing his cards extremely close to his chest – he is definitely not the person to play poker with – but also talks with positivity about the future of the UK market .
“ Well , without confirming or denying any rumours , Informa has a long , abiding position and a deep commitment to the UK market .
– Charlie McCurdy , chief executive of Informa Markets
“ A general statement , I can say that Informa , like many other exhibition organisers , have been using this hiatus to look forward to see where we can best have an impact on commercial sectors in a positive way as a show organiser . Additionally , there may be some sectors where it is possible others can take those same events and run them more effectively . “ All that being said , we are committed to the shows that we have been organising and plan to organise through the back end of this year when we can get back to market . “ The UK has had the most severe contractions since 1706 and that ’ s pretty bad . The uncanny silence about Brexit consequences , given
“ I feel we were responsible and fair to people and at the same time got to a place where we felt we needed to get to , given the more or less total contraction of the industry in most of our territories .” all the attention elsewhere , means we don ’ t really know what the impact on cross border activity is and how that translates into supply chains , which trade shows obviously are a big part of . So , there ’ s a lot of uncertainty here . “ But the history shows time and again that the resiliency of the economy here is one that is going to come back . A big part of what we do as event organisers is to help prime the pump of industrial recovery and I looking forward to Informa playing our part in that .”
Informa , like most other exhibition companies , saw a significant restructuring programme throughout 2020 and especially towards the end of that year . McCurdy felt comfortable with the programme they had put in place in 2020 and their ability to be ready to scale up when the time comes .
“ If you plotted the programme we put through last year on a range from draconian to considerate , I think we were quite considerate of our colleague ’ s welfare . We went through a series of voluntary actions , such as sabbaticals , and it was only toward the latter part of the year that we resorted to redundancies in the UK .
26 — March-April