Excited about a family event, a wedding, or another big party? A day on which everything has to work out perfectly. Mobile World Congress is once a year, 2,400 exhibitors from all over the world have been waiting for it for months. Everything has to work out.
Sunday, a day before Mobile World Congress opens its doors in Barcelona. The biggest international event for the telecommunications industry. Although the fair has not yet opened for visitors, I run into a bunch of people at the entrance. People from all over the world, I hear Asian languages, Russian, English and of course Spanish. Some wear work vests and tools, even helmets. Others seem to belong to the stand staff, and others look like business people. Somehow we make it through the ID control, nobody pushes. As we make our way through the halls, past boxes, cables, cardboard boxes, we open the doors to each other.
For the first time, I am at a trade fair the day before opening. I must say: I imagined it all differently. Hectic, excited, even a bit tense. After all, tomorrow will be the big opening. Each exhibitor will then have innumerable trades intertwined: Technology, trade fair construction, IT, public relations ...
On my way to the stand of my employer Telekom in Hall 3, the impressions overflow me. How will they manage to do that by tomorrow, I think at some stands where I only see plywood. At others, luminaires and reflective surfaces are already polished with a dust cloth. Still others have entrenched themselves behind dark curtains, signs forbid me to enter and take pictures. Everywhere I find huge catchwords saying: Smart, Intelligent, Connectivity, everything that is happening in the industry. The journey continues to the Telekom stand. The final touches have already been done at the exhibits. LED screens shine brightly, the floor shines.
I meet colleagues, some of whom I only see at trade fairs. What they all have in common is that they are calm and prudent. "We are a coordinated team," says the technician Stefan Brendel, who has laid, together with his colleagues, almost nine kilometers of network cable here at the stand in recent weeks. At least I don't see any agitation towards me.
Well-coordinated teams - that seems to be the key to spending days in the spotlight at the fair trade, where companies show their best side. Where everything has to work out, with an infinite number of precision landings. I wish us all a wonderful Mobile World Congress 2019.
