Cisco is the latest big-name vendor to pull out as an in-person exhibitor at this year’s MWC Barcelona event due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have made the decision to withdraw from participating in-person at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona due to ongoing concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic,” a Cisco spokesperson wrote in an email to SDxCentral. “While we are extremely disappointed that we cannot participate in-person with this event as planned, we believe this is the right decision given the current circumstances.”

Cisco follows in the steps of a handful of large vendors that have already announced they would forgo an in-person presence at this year’s event. That list includes Ericsson, Nokia, Facebook, and Sony.

Event host GSMA this week did tout that a new cloud consultancy firm had agreed to take over Ericsson’s entire floor space.

The multi-day event is scheduled to take place beginning June 28 in Barcelona, Spain.

The vendor decisions to not attend in person came on the heels of GSMA putting out a statement outlining its “health and safety” plans for the event. The “multi-layered” plan includes required negative COVID-19 tests by attendees before they are allowed to “board planes and travel to Catalonia,” those arriving by plane or car being directed to local testing sites, a negative rapid test before being allowed into the venue, and a new test required every 72 hours.

For the site itself, GSMA noted that there will be double the amount of entryways in order to alleviate traffic congestion, social distancing features put in place, and enforced one-way traffic flows throughout the venue. The organization also said that it expects to limit physical attendance to around 50,000 people, which is around half of the event’s normal attendance.

And in preparing for the worst, GSMA also said it will host a virtual component to the event. This is expected to be similar to what the organization did for its recently completed MWC Shanghai event. GSMA noted that the hybrid version of its Shanghai event attracted around 25,000 live attendees and another 175,000 people that viewed online content.

GSMA has attempted to get ahead of broader concerns about the event. CEO John Hoffman explained to the group’s Mobile World Live outlet that the industry organization was looking to create a “bubble” for all of Barcelona.

“Our view is it would be great if the world was vaccinated, but we can’t rely on that in 2021, so instead we’re relying on testing upfront to ensure our bubble isn’t just the Fira Gran Via but the whole of Barcelona,” Hoffman said.

Barcelona is approximately 39 square miles and home to more than 1.6 million people.

"MWC is the event that brings together the global mobile ecosystem to showcase the latest in technology for a better future. We believe the situation will continue to improve but we are not naïve. Not everyone will be able to get to MWC21," and that's why it's being organized as a hybrid event, a GSMA spokesperson wrote in response to questions from SDxCentral.

Tellingly, GSMA has yet to open attendee registration for the event, with the event page only allowing for people to “register your interest” for the event.

Matt Kapko contributed to this story.