the daily footfall, the record numbers of this and that. What other industry stressed that its product was near-impossible to consume? No wonder my services were needed. Adam was a genius.
It wasn’t impossible to see a whole show on this scale, but it was difficult. It took work. You had to be systematic, go aisle by aisle, moving up the hall in a zigzag, giving every stand some time but not so much time that it diminished the time given to others. That used to be my approach, but I found that route planning and time management occupied more of my thoughts than the content of the show itself. I was lost in the game of trying to see every stand, note every new product and expose myself to every scrap of stimuli – the show as a whole left only a shallow track on my memory. And my reports were similarly shallow. They were even-handed but lacked any texture; they were mere aggregations of data. In being systematic, I saw only my own system. Completism was blindness: it yielded only a partial view.
After a year of trudging around fairs in this manner, I realised my reports were formulaic and stale, full of ritual phrases and repeated structures. And the entire point of the endeavour was to spare clients that endless repetition. They employed me because they already knew the routine aspects of these fairs or didn’t care to know them – what they wanted was something else. So I threw away my diligent systems and timetables and started to truly explore. Today was typical of my current method of not having a method – I would strike out into the centre of the hall, ignoring all pleas and distractions, and from there walk without direction. I would try to drift, to allow myself to be carried by the current and eddies of the hall, thinking only in the moment, watching and following the people around me. Beyond that, I tried to think as little as possible about my overall aims and as much as possible about what was in front of me at any given time. I would give myself to the experience, keep my notes sparse, take a few photos. It’s not easy to be purposefully random, but it pays. Once I started taking this approach, my reports became colourful and impressionistic. They were filled with telling details and quirky insights. The imperfection of memory became a strength.
It’s only on the second and subsequent days of a fair that I seek out the specifics that clients have requested and conduct any enquiries they might have asked for. More detail accrues naturally, organically, around these small quests.
Surrounded by conference organisers, I am the only professional conference-goer. It’s what I do; nothing else. And they – the people here, the exhibitors, the venues, the visitors, the whole meetings industry – have no idea.
The stands passed by, hawking bulk nametags, audiovisual equipment, seating systems, serviced office space. Not just office space – all kinds of space are packaged and marketed here, and places too. You can get a good deal, a great deal, on Vietnamese-made wholesale tote bags at Meetex, but what it and its competitors mostly trade in is locations. Excuse me, ‘destinations’. Cities, regions, countries; all were ideal for your event, whether they were Wroclaw, Arizona or Sri Lanka, or Taipei, Oaxaca or Israel. All combined history and modernity. All were the accessible crossroads of their part of the world. All were gateways and hearts. All had state-of-the-art facilities that could be relied upon. All had luxurious yet affordable hotels. Most importantly, all of these hundreds of places across the world were distinctive, unique and outstanding. Consistently, uniformly so.
Those comfortable, cost-effective hotels and state-of-the-art facilities were also present at Meetex. Other conference centres promoted themselves, boasting of the inexhaustible square kilometres they had available on scores of city outskirts. Within a giant space, I was being coaxed to other giant spaces; a fractal shed-world, halls within halls within halls.
Another section was devoted to the chain hotels, and its promises of pampering and revitalisation were hard to bear. Women wrapped in blinding white towels, cucumber slices over eyes. Men, ties AWOL, drinking beer in vibrant bars. Couples clinking capacious wine glasses over gourmet meals. Clean linen, gleaming bathrooms, spectacular views. These were highly seductive images for me. I wanted to be back at the hotel, reclining on the bed, taking a long shower, ordering a room service meal, perhaps with some wine thrown in.
It mattered little that the images were a total fiction – posed by models, supplied by stock photo agencies, the gourmet food made of plastic, the views computer generated, the bar a stage set – the desire they generated was real. Meetex was dominated by these deceitful images, defined by them. The location on sale is immaterial. The picture, the money shot, is nearly identical everywhere: a gender-mixed, multicultural group unites around an arm-outstretched, gap-bridging handshake, glorying in it; gameshow smiles all round, with an ancient monument or expressive work of modern architecture as the backdrop. Business! Being Done! The transcendent, holy moment when The Deal is Struck. Everyone profits! And in unique, iconic, spectacular surroundings, heaving with antiquities and avant-garde structures, the people bland and attractive, their skin tones a tolerant variety but all much alike, looking as if they have just agreed the sale of the world’s funniest and most tasteful joke while standing in the lobby of a Zaha Hadid museum.
If only they looked around. Business was done in places like the Way Inn, or in giant sheds like the MetaCentre. Properly homogenised environments, purged of real character like an operating theatre is rid of germs. Clean, uncorrupt. That’s where deals are struck – in the Grey Labyrinth. And that’s where I headed, because I had business to attend to.
The Grey Labyrinth took up the rear third of the centre’s main hall. This space was set aside for meetings, negotiations and deal-making, subdivided into dozens of small rooms where people could talk in private. It was the opposite of the visual overload of the fair, a complex of grey fabric-covered partitions with no decoration and few signs. All sounds were muffled by the acoustic panels. The little numbered cubicles were the most basic space possible for business – a phone line, a conference table topped with a hard white composite material, some office chairs. Sometimes they included a potted plant, or adverts for the sponsor company that had supplied the furnishings. Mass-produced bubbles of space, available by the half-hour, where visitors video-conferenced with their home office or did handshake deals. They loved to talk about the handshake, about eye contact, about the chairman’s Mont Blanc on a paper contract – these anatomical cues you could only get from meeting face to face. They wanted primal authenticity, something that could be simulated but could never be equalled. But it all took place in a completely synthetic environment – four noise-deadening, view-screening modular panels, a table, some chairs, a phone line. Or, nowadays, a well-filled wifi bath in place of the latter.
I had booked cubicle M-A2-54 for 10.30 a.m. It was empty when I arrived, four unoccupied office chairs around a small round table. A blank whiteboard on a grey board wall. No preparation was needed for the meeting and I sat quietly, drumming my fingers on the hard surface of the table, listening to the muted sounds that carried over the partitions.
The prospect was seven minutes late, but I didn’t let my irritation show when he arrived, and greeted him with the warm smile and firm handshake I know his kind admire.
‘Neil Double. Pleasure to meet you.’ False – I am indifferent about the experience. Foolish to place so much faith in a currency that is so easily counterfeited.
‘Tom Graham. Likewise.’ Graham was an inch or two shorter than me but much more substantial – a man who had been built for rugby but, in his forties, was letting that muscle turn to butter in the rugby club bar. His thick neck was red under the collar of his Thomas Pink shirt. Curly black hair, sprinkled with grey, over the confident features of a moderately successful man. We sat opposite each other.
‘So, Tom, why are you here?’
He jutted his bottom lip out and made a display of considering the question.
‘A friend told me about your service, and I wanted to find out more about it.’
Word of mouth, of course – we don’t advertise.
‘I meant,’ I said, ‘why are you here at the conference? Aren’t there places you would rather be? Back at the office, getting things done? At home with your family?’
‘Aha,’ Tom said. ‘I see where you’re going.’
‘Conferences and trade fairs are hugely costly,’