Successful Premiere of New-look CEBIT

Successful Premiere of New-look CEBIT
CEBIT

Last week, CEBIT premiered in a new time frame and with many other new things. The all-new concept was enthusiastically received by exhibitors and visitors alike in Hannover, Germany.

“The revamped CEBIT has been a big success,“ said Heiko Meyer, Chairperson of the CEBIT Exhibitors’ Committee and CEO of HPE. “Congratulations to the entire CEBIT team on the premiere of an all-new CEBIT. By courageously undergoing such a radical transformation, they have laid a solid foundation for the future. The reinvented CEBIT has been a genuine business event and festival all rolled into one. Participating companies have embraced the new concept and are looking forward to the next CEBIT in June 2019.“

Oliver Frese, the member of Deutsche Messe’s Managing Board responsible for CEBIT, remarked: “We’re getting highly positive feedback on the future viability of the new approach, and for our decision not to just talk about disruption, but to roll up our sleeves and actually make it happen. Right from the start, we succeeded in combining real business in the halls with a festival atmosphere on the d!campus. The revamped CEBIT has put an emotional spin on digitization, making the associated technologies more accessible to society, while at the same time underscoring the real-world opportunities emerging from it.“

The mix of elements chosen for the new CEBIT worked very well. Exhibitors spent the daytime hours generating leads in the halls. One in three of their visitors came from top management, and more than one in four came from abroad. The conference-only “Take-off Monday“ was booked out in advance, and the many keynotes, presentations and panel discussions held on the subsequent days attracted 30,000 attendees keen on hearing about the opportunities and challenges of digitization. Meanwhile, the d!campus enabled visitors to chill out and immerse themselves in digitization in a lounge-like atmosphere. And every night was partytime, with Mando Diao, Jan Delay and Digitalism all appearing, plus a drone show as well.

CEBIT’s new concept created a buzz right from the start. Day after day, it was a trending topic on the Internet, with live online streams of the conferences attracting more than 400,000 viewers. On social media, CEBIT reached more than half a million people a day. Exhibitors also reported millions of hits. The hashtags #cebit, #cebit18 and #cebit2018 topped the German Twitter charts on the first days of the event, and a total of 120,000 people attended the show on site in Hannover. Many big-name digital enterprises that took part in the premiere of the new CEBIT have already said they will be back for the next edition, which runs from 24 to 28 June 2019.