MWC – A Guide to the Halls of Horror

It’s now less than three weeks until the madness that is Mobile World Congress starts again. As usual, the Babel team will be there in force again this year representing a wide range of clients scattered across all the halls. We’ve got to know those halls pretty well over the years and so we thought we’d provide some light-hearted guidance for those new to MWC and those who have forgotten how to find their way around.

• Hall 1
  128 stands keeping Huawei (which has 6,393.25m² of space) company. No doubt a number of their team will be wearing a path from Hall 1 to Hall 7 where the Canadian Embassy have a stand.
• Hall 2
  295 stands and meeting rooms keeping Ericsson company (occupying slightly less space than Huawei with 6,052.94m²) who will be trying to capitalise on Huawei’s current woes and carefully avoiding any discussion of ‘expired certificates’.
• Hall 2.1
  77 meeting rooms and most of them occupied by Facebook with birthday cakes in every one to celebrate their 15^th. It’s not obvious where 2.1 is if you don’t know – head to the upper walkway and you’ll find two entrances (on the left and right) between Halls 2 and 3.
• Hall 3
  This is the ‘big boy hall’. There may be only 57 meeting rooms and stands but you’ll recognise every brand displayed and every one of those stands could cope easily with a six-a-side football game on multiple levels.
• Hall 4
  The hall that everyone seems to miss because the entrance isn’t obvious (hint: it’s opposite Hall 5). When you do find it, you will see just 60 stands and meeting rooms but Hall 4 also plays host to all the conference sessions – get yourself over there to be educated (or to rest on a comfy seat if you prefer).
• Hall 5
  The second most populous hall with 440 individual stands and meeting rooms. You’ll find everyone from BMW at the front, to Shenzhen Gospell Digital Technologies at the back.
• Hall 6
  296 stands and meeting rooms with Daimler at the front (the ‘M’ in MWC clearly stands for ‘motoring’ now), to the economically named Kx at the back.
• Hall 7
  With 454 stands and meeting rooms, Hall 7 looks like it could be a busy place and it is. It’s actually possible to wander around all day without ever seeing an exit but we don’t recommend it.
• Hall 8
  A lot of MWC visitors never make it to Hall 8 which is a mistake. As well as being the location of the north entrance to the exhibition (often much less busy than the main entrance), Hall 8 houses the Damm Bar – I quite often hear people at the end of the day asking where the damn bar is…
• Hall 8.1
  It takes a while to get there (a water bottle and sandwich is recommended) but after 15-20mins slogging your way through the crowds from the main entrance you will be greeted by 377 stands and meeting rooms. Some of them are even worth a closer look.
• Congress Square
  Congress Square (CS) starts at the exit of Hall 3 and then runs between Halls 4 and 5 and then between Halls 6 and 7. This is particularly annoying if you happen to be looking for a square. As you know the length:width ratio of a square is 1:1 but CS is roughly 7:1 and I’m reliably informed that makes it a rectangle! Anyway, in CS you will find a lot of Spanish government sponsored action, the Wearables Pavilion (which isn’t actually a pavilion) and the Broadcast Village (it’s not a village).
• South Village
  This is not a village either – it’s a collection of 10 or so stands / meeting rooms located outside the main entrance presumably because there was no space left inside.
• Upper Walkway
  There are a collection of lectern sized ‘stands’ scattered along the upper walkway – if you happen to have one of those lecterns (and our advice is don’t) half of your time is going to be spent apologising for getting in the way of the crowds moving from one hall to another.
• 4YFN
  If you haven’t had enough after going through that lot, you could venture over to the Fira Montjuïc (or the ‘old Fira’ as we call it) where MWC has spawned 4YFN for the startup community. Another 702 stands await you.

Looking forward to seeing you all there for MWC19!