An upcoming trade show at the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) in Singapore is set to welcome 2,500 participants, making it the biggest of such large-scale business events to be held since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Set to take place from June 30 to July 2, the Architecture and Building Services 2021 is also expecting 5,000 virtual attendees as it takes on a hybrid format, its organiser Conference & Exhibition Management Services (CEMS) announced yesterday.
The organiser said it plans to split the 11,620 sq m exhibition space into four zones. Each zone will have no more than 50 participants at a time in accordance with prevailing COVID-19 safety measures.
It will also implement two-hour time slots from 10 am to 6 pm for the admission of participants into the venue throughout the three days.
After the end of every two hours, participants will be ushered out before a new batch can enter. Safe-distancing ambassadors will be on site to ensure these rules are kept to. Registration and pre-event COVID- testing will be conducted at an adjacent exhibition hall, CEMS said.
According to the latest guidelines announced last month, pre-event testing is required for events of more than 250 people. But individuals who have completed the full vaccination regimen and have had time to develop sufficient protection from the virus will be exempted.
The Architecture and Building Services 2021 event will be “among the first few pilot trade shows with a substantially vaccinated attendee population,” said Andrew Phua, executive director of exhibitions and conferences at the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). “This gives us the opportunity to roll out and refine newly-developed protocols such as exempting all vaccinated local attendees from pre-event testing requirements at larger-scale events.”
Meanwhile, to provide an “additional layer of screening”, robots will be stationed at the entrances of the venue to conduct temperature scanning. These robots, owned by local firm Concorde Security, can scan up to three people at one go and will help to reduce the manpower needed.
Singapore has been taking steps to revive its multi-billion dollar meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) industry as it gears up to host the World Economic Forum in August.
Since the announcement of STB’s safe business events framework in July last year, about 60 MICE events hosting close to 9,000 attendees have been held.
Notably, there were two large-scale hybrid trade shows – the TravelRevive in November last year and the more recent GEO Connect Asia 2021, which saw about 1,000 participants each.
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