My take on the Thessaloniki International Fair 2021

After a year of hiatus due to the COVID-19 restrictions, Thessaloniki International Fair 2021 took place as a physical event between 11-19 of September 2021 - and I was excited to participate after a long time stuck at the office.

This year, again due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the Fair was not that International as its previous iterations - plus, the attendance was pretty low, due to the fact that the Fair was open only to those already vaccinated and / or those who had already recovered from COVID-19. The security measures at the entrances were pretty tight, so these measures were actually enforced.

While in the previous versions of the TIF, NEUROPUBLIC had a stand inside one of the Pavilions, this year the company had an impressive external Stand right after the main entrance of the Fair. The main components of NEUROPUBLIC's Stand were the following:

• Two external and one internal large monitors were used for the playback of corporate videos and related material, 
• Two smartphones were available for visitors to try the new gaiasense mobile app 
• Lots of printed material like NEUROPUBLIC's corporate profile, the new gaiasense booklet and threefold leaflet, plus my favorite gaiasense pens (they turned out to be pretty popular!)
• A fully functional telemetric agrometeorological station of gaiasense was installed in the nearby flower bed and transmitted data measurements to one of the screens

Plus, there were two promoters giving out helium-filled gaiasense balloons to kids and leaflets to visitors.

I missed the great opening of the event (not a bad thing, for various reasons) as I joined my colleagues after the 3rd day. Everything was already set up so I only had to make sure that everything was working smoothly, relaxing music was playing all the time, our WiFi hotspot was on - as was our valuable air-condition.

I had the opportunity to discuss about the gaiasense smart farming system and mobile app to various visitors, including farmers, researchers and other technology providers seeking opportunities for collaboration. In addition, I organized project-thematic days at the Stand, featuring our PoliRural, SmartPeach and SmartOliveGrove projects. Each day we had a poster or rollup and leaflets of each project, and this went better than I expected, as the visiting producers were more than I anticipated.

During my stay I had the opportunity to meet new colleagues working at NEUROPUBLIC's Thessaloniki office, like Kostas, Vaggelis and Matthew - all of them proved to be great guys and good match to the rest of the team. We set up everything in the morning and packed everything back (including the large monitors, the packs of printed materials and chairs/tables, among others) each evening, by the closing of the Fair.

In general, participation in such events is exhausting: You typically have to wake up pretty early, have breakfast, open the Stand and put everything in place, move around all the time restocking printed material, pencils, making sure to fix the mess of chairs and papers being out of place (and all over the place), talking to visitors, preparing cups of coffee and bags of promotional material, and try to find some time for a quick lunch break when the pace of the event is slow.

The day is over and we are about to start packing stuff for the day to come

However, this trip - as each trip inside Greece or abroad - was a refreshing change in the daily office routine. I like hotel life, I love wandering around a city and seeing new things, tasting new dishes and breathing fresh air. This is why I managed to reach my daily steps target during my stay - I had the energy to walk around even during late evening after a long and busy day at the Fair.

Getting to talk to potential customers is always a pleasure, but there is an awful lot of work to do back to the office so I am wrapping up and looking forward to the next trip.