»To be sure: the CEBIT concept remains as it is.«

Deutsche Messe draws a positive CEBIT conclusion. Oliver Freese explains at CRN-TV that the new concept has been a success and will remain so, but also admits that in the future, despite all the event character, it will be necessary to emphasise more that business will continue at the trade fair.

According to the organizer, CEBIT has successfully mastered its new start. Oliver Frese, Member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Messe AG, emphasized at the closing press conference that CEBIT had achieved all the goals it had set itself. The number of 120,000 visitors should not be measured against previous CEBITs, says Frese: »We should stop comparing this CEBIT with the old one. This is a new event, quasi CEBIT 1.0«. More important is that the new concept proves to be sustainable, namely to revive the old ITC trade fair as a digital festival and to make CEBIT the leading event of the digital transformation.

CEBIT should be more open, younger and more feminine. According to Frese, this was achieved. The average age of visitors is 35 years. And the response in the social media has also increased enormously. »CEBIT was a hot topic on the web for days. The live online streamings of the conference were used by more than 400,000 people. More than half a million people were reached every day via the social networks of CEBIT.« The hashtags #cebit, #cebit18 and #cebit2018 were the front-runners in the German Twitter charts »beating even Donald Trump and the soccer worldcup«, as Frese pointed out.

»The new CEBIT was a complete success,« explained Heiko Meyer, Managing Director of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), who also played a major role in the new concept as Chairman of the CEBIT Trade Fair Committee. »With the courage for radical transformation, the team has laid the foundation for the future. The new CEBIT has combined business with festival. The companies involved are "convinced" of the new concept.« According to Meyer, HPE will also be back next year. CEBIT 2019 will take place in the last week of June, from 24 to 28 June 2019.