Sergey Voronkov: in today’s world, only convention and exhibition events create a space of trust

Sergey Voronkov, General Director of ExpoForum International and President of the Russian Union of Exhibitions and Fairs, told how convention and exhibition events form a new civil society and help the Russian economy survive.

New roles, new formats

ExpoForum is annually visited by about one million people. Almost 700 thousand of them (which is 70% of all traffic in St. Petersburg) are business tourists. They are representatives of power, business, diplomatic, cultural and scientific elite. At the venue, all these people communicate with each other, have hundreds of thousands of meetings and negotiations, and build connections. And there is simply no other tool that is as effective. Convention and exhibition centers are the best institute of socialization.

It is important not only to rebuild the economy, but also to create a new civil society with new ideas, new common platforms, and a new future. To do this, we need thousands of events for different groups of people. Only live communication, collective energy, collective consciousness form a new civil society.

It is not by chance that the Russia project is being created as per the instruction of Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. On November 4, a large-scale exhibition will start operating at VDNH, which will demonstrate the achievements of all Russian regions and sectors of the economy in recent years, as well as development prospects. It is important that the chosen formats will convey the right narratives to all, including children. They will soon have to build a new future for Russia themselves. Over the course of a few months, millions of people will visit the exhibition.

An event is the only unique tool that helps verify information. When you see everything with your own eyes, touch everything with your own hands, communicate with real people, the most important condition for dynamic development of economy and society in today’s world is fulfilled: trust. Only convention and exhibition venues and the events that take place in their territory today are capable of forming a space of trust.

Trust, socialization, and live interaction with real people are in high demand in the society today. This is evident in the new event formats as well.

For example, large companies are now moving away from the practice of ordinary corporate events in favor of professional corporate forums. They choose motivational events with encouragement for the best employees, training courses, professional competitions, organization of experience exchange, discussion of internal corporate issues. Today, corporations are interested in increasing staff loyalty and engaging employees in strategy implementation. There is a need to create a sense of stability, social optimism, future prospects, and a feeling of belonging to one’s labor collective.

The trend for professional corporate forums is gaining momentum, and our task is to help companies access the best practices in this area. The endless sea of online communication, neural networks, and marketplaces minimizes live human interaction. Professional corporate forums are the island of socialization that provides live contacts, stability and confidence in the future.

Convention and exhibition events create the same feeling on a global level in the entire society. They do not just unite and bring people together on the basis of common themes, ideas, and views. Exhibitions, congresses, forums, summits clearly demonstrate the country’s development processes, tools and ways of its response to unprecedented international challenges, adaptation to new realities, realization of the most important strategic tasks: import substitution, parallel import, development of new logistics chains and international cooperation, end-to-end technologies, etc.

Any participant/visitor at the event will see the image of the future to which the country is heading and which is formed at convention and exhibition venues. Such a person will forever stop believing various throw-ins, fake studies, and misinformation. He will understand how, in what direction and toward which goal the country is moving, see its development, and understand what role he himself can play in these processes. This will instill the feelings of positivity, optimism and confidence in the future.

Events unite friendly countries

Convention and exhibition events are also an instrument of people’s diplomacy and soft power. Foreign citizens do not receive objective information about our country and only know what is said in the Western media about Russia. Arriving at our event, they completely get rid of stereotypes and will never believe international fakes again. We need to develop international cooperation and contribute to the consolidation not only of our society, but also to the establishment of social ties and economic relations with friendly states.

One of the main competitive advantages of the global West over the global East is its highly organized, well-connected structure. In fact, they have actually built a unified neural network which facilitates fast and consolidated decisions. The task of the SCO, BRICS and EAEU states is to build a similar structure. Face-to-face encounters are necessary for its creation and emergence of a collective consciousness. As a business community, we deal with about 1% of the population of the SCO and BRICS countries – representatives of the government, scientific and business elite. That’s about 70 million people, and each must have at least 1,000 connections to form a collective consciousness. About 150 thousand meetings take place at a large event of the SPIEF level. This means that the SCO and BRICS countries need to organize 700 thousand events per year. And now there are only 40,000.

But the trends are positive. Representatives of 130 countries and territories have gathered at SPIEF. In July, ExpoForum is hosting the Russia–Africa Summit. It will be attended by the entire elite of almost every country in Africa, including heads of state.

The old parable of the twig and the broom comes to mind. It’s easy to break one twig in half, but you can’t do that with a broom. So, the Russian economy withstood the most powerful sanctions blow, because the twigs gathered into a broom. And the instrument of this consolidation of society, the twine that tied all the twigs together, was convention and exhibition events.

That is why we need to organize as many events as possible in all spheres of economic activity with the most diverse thematic orientation in order to keep facing all challenges of the time together.

More

Sergey Voronkov: in today’s world, only convention and exhibition events create a space of trust

Sergey Voronkov, General Director of ExpoForum International and President of the Russian Union of Exhibitions and Fairs, told how convention and exhibition events form a new civil society and help the Russian economy survive.

New roles, new formats

ExpoForum is annually visited by about one million people. Almost 700 thousand of them (which is 70% of all traffic in St. Petersburg) are business tourists. They are representatives of power, business, diplomatic, cultural and scientific elite. At the venue, all these people communicate with each other, have hundreds of thousands of meetings and negotiations, and build connections. And there is simply no other tool that is as effective. Convention and exhibition centers are the best institute of socialization.

It is important not only to rebuild the economy, but also to create a new civil society with new ideas, new common platforms, and a new future. To do this, we need thousands of events for different groups of people. Only live communication, collective energy, collective consciousness form a new civil society.

It is not by chance that the Russia project is being created as per the instruction of Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. On November 4, a large-scale exhibition will start operating at VDNH, which will demonstrate the achievements of all Russian regions and sectors of the economy in recent years, as well as development prospects. It is important that the chosen formats will convey the right narratives to all, including children. They will soon have to build a new future for Russia themselves. Over the course of a few months, millions of people will visit the exhibition.

An event is the only unique tool that helps verify information. When you see everything with your own eyes, touch everything with your own hands, communicate with real people, the most important condition for dynamic development of economy and society in today’s world is fulfilled: trust. Only convention and exhibition venues and the events that take place in their territory today are capable of forming a space of trust.

Trust, socialization, and live interaction with real people are in high demand in the society today. This is evident in the new event formats as well.

For example, large companies are now moving away from the practice of ordinary corporate events in favor of professional corporate forums. They choose motivational events with encouragement for the best employees, training courses, professional competitions, organization of experience exchange, discussion of internal corporate issues. Today, corporations are interested in increasing staff loyalty and engaging employees in strategy implementation. There is a need to create a sense of stability, social optimism, future prospects, and a feeling of belonging to one’s labor collective.

The trend for professional corporate forums is gaining momentum, and our task is to help companies access the best practices in this area. The endless sea of online communication, neural networks, and marketplaces minimizes live human interaction. Professional corporate forums are the island of socialization that provides live contacts, stability and confidence in the future.

Convention and exhibition events create the same feeling on a global level in the entire society. They do not just unite and bring people together on the basis of common themes, ideas, and views. Exhibitions, congresses, forums, summits clearly demonstrate the country’s development processes, tools and ways of its response to unprecedented international challenges, adaptation to new realities, realization of the most important strategic tasks: import substitution, parallel import, development of new logistics chains and international cooperation, end-to-end technologies, etc.

Any participant/visitor at the event will see the image of the future to which the country is heading and which is formed at convention and exhibition venues. Such a person will forever stop believing various throw-ins, fake studies, and misinformation. He will understand how, in what direction and toward which goal the country is moving, see its development, and understand what role he himself can play in these processes. This will instill the feelings of positivity, optimism and confidence in the future.

Events unite friendly countries

Convention and exhibition events are also an instrument of people’s diplomacy and soft power. Foreign citizens do not receive objective information about our country and only know what is said in the Western media about Russia. Arriving at our event, they completely get rid of stereotypes and will never believe international fakes again. We need to develop international cooperation and contribute to the consolidation not only of our society, but also to the establishment of social ties and economic relations with friendly states.

One of the main competitive advantages of the global West over the global East is its highly organized, well-connected structure. In fact, they have actually built a unified neural network which facilitates fast and consolidated decisions. The task of the SCO, BRICS and EAEU states is to build a similar structure. Face-to-face encounters are necessary for its creation and emergence of a collective consciousness. As a business community, we deal with about 1% of the population of the SCO and BRICS countries – representatives of the government, scientific and business elite. That’s about 70 million people, and each must have at least 1,000 connections to form a collective consciousness. About 150 thousand meetings take place at a large event of the SPIEF level. This means that the SCO and BRICS countries need to organize 700 thousand events per year. And now there are only 40,000.

But the trends are positive. Representatives of 130 countries and territories have gathered at SPIEF. In July, ExpoForum is hosting the Russia–Africa Summit. It will be attended by the entire elite of almost every country in Africa, including heads of state.

The old parable of the twig and the broom comes to mind. It’s easy to break one twig in half, but you can’t do that with a broom. So, the Russian economy withstood the most powerful sanctions blow, because the twigs gathered into a broom. And the instrument of this consolidation of society, the twine that tied all the twigs together, was convention and exhibition events.

That is why we need to organize as many events as possible in all spheres of economic activity with the most diverse thematic orientation in order to keep facing all challenges of the time together.

More