THIS MONTH Britain’s National Exhibition Centre , the country’s largest events venue, was due to host shows including Motorcycle Live, Simply Christmas and Cake International. Yet instead of being filled with bikes, toys and confectionery, the space has been fitted with 380 hospital beds. Covid-19 has wiped out the planned exhibitions, tipped the NEC’s management company into restructuring and caused the government to turn one of its halls into an emergency field hospital.
Take the colossal trade-fair centre in Hanover, the size of 60 football pitches. It closed in March and has been empty most of the time since. Deutsche Messe, which runs it, expected revenues of€ The opposite is true in sport, another crowd-dependent business. After a pause in the spring, most professional leagues have managed to play on, getting around the lack of spectators in novel ways. FC Seoul populated its stadium with mannequins from a sex-toy supplier . Others have piped in sound, added cardboard cut-out or CGI spectators or even live-streamed fans’ faces onto screens in the stands, as in WWE wrestling’s new “ThunderDome” in Florida.
The decline in whole-game viewing bodes ill for the big sports broadcasters. ESPN, owned by Disney, announced this month that it was cutting 500 jobs amid “tremendous disruption in how fans consume sports”. Its chairman, Jimmy Pitaro, said the company would focus on “serving sports fans in a myriad of new ways”; some written and audio content has gone behind its paywall.