The Mobile World Congress (MWC) celebrates 18 editions in Barcelona and, if it were a birthday party to celebrate coming of age, it would be crowded and with very diverse people who don't know each other, but are very predisposed to get along. On the one hand, there are the relatives, those who pay for the party: the mobile phone sector. They have been blowing out candles since the child was born and have seen him grow up together with the public administrations, who supported him when, in his teens, he faced a pandemic crisis that caused everything to go to waste.
On the other hand, there are all the friends he has made over the last few years who have shaped his way of being. Some drive cars, others robots, those beyond talk about intangible but apparently very interesting things like artificial intelligence and 6G technology... They all go to the coming-of-age party ready to go on present in the life of the congress that has made Barcelona its home and that enters adult life with a desire to eat the world. "It's been the best first day in Mobile", celebrated the visible face of the congress, John Hoffman, when the day ended, to be followed by three more. The organization's forecast is that 95,000 attendees will be exceeded, despite the fact that there are already more than 100,000 registered and the final figure may exceed all expectations.
Erected in a great transversal meeting of the world of digitization, the Mobile has recovered the feeling of the great occasions, with an incessant bustle accompanied by conversations in very different languages since it opened its doors yesterday. It was virtually impossible to move through the central corridors of the fairgrounds throughout the morning of the first day of the convention, and there were no free tables in the executive meeting spaces. It is one of the main reasons for being part of the congress, which for four days becomes a small UN in which professionals from almost every country in the world live together. On one side of the corridor, Colombia, on the other, Korea and, between the two, the United Kingdom. Barcelona acts as a neutral meeting point in Europe for professionals from America and Asia, one of the geopolitical reasons that have driven the congress all these years.
Asian professionals have a prominent presence there, with numerous delegations arriving from China that could not come from 2019 due to the pandemic restrictions of the Asian giant.
The external structures enabled by the organization to accommodate the 2,400 exhibitors have also returned, an unequivocal indicator that they need space beyond the eight pavilions of the Gran Via site of Fira de Barcelona in l'Hospitalet.
Great hopes for the future are placed on the opening of pavilion 0 with 60,000 square meters, although this will not be until 2027. Until then, it is time to fit everything in as much as possible, a fact that is clear from the entrance to the congress , where a large external structure that was installed in 2019 has been recovered with the aim of reducing crowds and speeding up the registration and entry validation process. With the installation, in addition, the ornamental fountain is covered without water due to the drought, a problem that the organization has informed all the attendees about and that is being reminded with messages on the mirrors of some hand basins that less water comes out than before
Drought is the umpteenth challenge. "In 18 years I have never done the same thing, every year something different happens", says Sandra Ripoll, director of external events at Fira de Barcelona, in charge of 30 people who work all year because the four days of celebration come out rolling Yesterday at half past six in the morning I arrived at the fair and a piece of carpet was torn. Quickly, everything was activated so that when you opened the doors at eight in the morning everything was spotless.
Ripoll has accompanied the growth of the salon, which he looks on with pride from the engine room and celebrates how "it has been gradually getting bigger". It made the move in 2013, when it moved from Montjuïc to Gran Via, and Ripoll points out that work procedures have improved a lot as the congress has grown. Every time everything is more technical and the Fira de Barcelona and GSMA teams are more closely related in terms of what Ripoll describes as a "relationship of mutual trust". However, until the party is over on Thursday, no one will rest here.
