You may have already seen the news that September's APF Exhibition, which takes place biannually, is the latest industry event to fall foul of the current situation.

If you've never attended, it's an absolutely huge show for the forestry machinery industry, that takes place across a massive outdoor site. However, even with this in their favour, the organisers have reached the conclusion that it simply isn't viable to hold the show in 2020. Another sad but inevitable postponement.

With SALTEX already having confirmed a shift until March next year, pretty much the only autumn UK events left on the calendar for our sector are Tillage Live which takes place at Down Ampney, Gloucestershire and GLEE at the NEC. This morning both events' websites say they are still scheduled to take place in September.

One imagines it's Glee that will find it harder to continue as planned, seeing as they are an indoor show. Perhaps they have a grand plan up their sleeve to make holding the show possible? Or maybe they are just waiting a bit longer for further announcements from government before saying something more? An announcement on their site says, "We are in constant contact with health authorities and UK government and will provide an immediate update should the situation develop further."

SALTEX released a statement just this week, which spoke about the positive feedback they had received both from manufacturers and their turf professional end-user visitors, over announcing their decision to postpone early.

Combined with these trade show postponements, there will of course also be a lack of manufacturer-organised dealer demo days this autumn. We surveyed our readers on this subject a few weeks ago, with the findings set to be published in the forthcoming issue of Service Dealer (which is currently at the printers). Not spoiling anything, but the headline takeaway is that dealers who responded told us they are not ready to attend events such as this right now anyway.

Therefore there appears to be an issue which needs addressing regarding the presentation of new products to dealers. As one dealer said to us recently, 'if manufacturers don't introduce their new products to me, how am I going to introduce them to my customers?'

The obvious answer is of course video conferencing. 'Hooray', I hear you all cry, 'more Zooms!'

We report today on the claims of success by the organisers of last week's Cereals LIVE event, which had to take place online. They say they had over 10,000 visitors joining them virtually, from around the world, across their two days. They managed to hold machinery demos, seminar discussions and even a virtual beer tent for visitors to chat and relax in.

And there have been other similar examples recently. On one of our calls with manufacturer representatives, Makita told us an online presentation, attracted close to double the number of dealers they might expect to see at an event in real life. Around 400 logged on apparently, which is certainly impressive when you consider just how busy dealers will have been with everything these past few weeks. It clearly shows there's an appetite out there for digital information.

In years gone by we have heard grumbles regarding the time away from the dealership that demo days take up. Driving to and from an event can often take up much more time than the actual content of the presentations! So clearly video and online will play an essential role this year - and almost inevitably into the future.

To what extent will it continue though, once distancing rules are reduced and mass gatherings are acceptable once again?

Do you think Zoom and Teams remove the element of wasted time and money involved in travelling to an event? Will virtual meetings, combined with visits from manufacturers' reps be more than adequate? Has this enforced change, actually been the kick in the modern direction that was required?

My guess, for what it's worth, is that we'll see a blend of both video conferencing and traditional live events. That face-to-face interaction will always be special - I don't think anyone would deny that. What I suspect we'll find happening is fewer but more significant in-person meetings and increased online activity than perhaps we've been used to pre-2020.

But what do you think? Would you be happy with this? Do you want more of one than the other? Let us know in the comments below.