ISE Hits All-Time Attendance Records

February 5, 2024 by Dave Haynes

Given that some ghastly amount of snow has smothered the place we call most of the year, I am particularly happy we are doing a working holiday in Portugal.

It has been sunny since we got here and our rented flat is right on the ocean south of Porto.

I am also happy I now have my luggage, which made it to Madrid from Barcelona, but decided to hang out there instead of catching the connecting flight.

The ISE people sent a series of news releases Friday that kept being corrected for numbers, but they all contained the accurate statement that the 2024 edition was a monster for attendance – the biggest to date. It defied suggestions floated when the move was announced from Amsterdam that while Barcelona would offer better weather and a more cohesive venue, it was less convenient to get to … and therefore would permanently lower numbers.

There was also the COVID-era suggestion that trade shows were never going to fully recover as the pandemic led to knew ways to connect and market.

Nope. People want to see each other. And people need to see and touch things – particularly display technology that can look awesome in controlled videos and photos, but flawed when seen in person.

The numbers:

The event broke almost every record that can be broken …

• • 73,891 unique visitors from more than 175 countries attended the trade show;
  • ISE recorded over four days a total of 172,627 visits;
  • 95,396 visitor registered to attend.

Wednesday was the most visited ISE day ever (51,617 visitors). And on Friday, the day that always tends to flatten out a little, there were still 24,528 – another record.

I had a sense this would be the biggest yet when walking around Friday morning. Often, that’s a day when vendors are debating the merits of a fourth day. But it was still pretty darn busy.