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New Delhi: For startups betting big on visibility, the payoff appears hazy. With stalls costing between \u20b9<\/span>15 lakh and \u20b9<\/span>50 lakh for the week and the opening day turning into a near-wipeout, exhibitors at the five-day India AI Impact Summit are questioning the returns on their investment. Concerns have been compounded by tighter restrictions expected in the coming days due to VIP visits and, as several exhibitors put it, the absence of a \u201ctarget crowd\u201d that could help them showcase their businesses to investors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cUnstable internet affected live demos, laptops and cameras were restricted at a tech event, and queues ran over an hour,\u201d said Pravin Kaushal, director at Mrikal, a data and artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a> firm exhibiting at the summit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Kaushal wasn\u2019t the only one ruing the glitches.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The founder of a Bengaluru-based robotics startup, also exhibiting at the venue, said the quality of visitors at the expo floor was underwhelming from the standpoint of returns on investments. “You want decision-makers, investors, and serious buyers walking up to your stall, not just curious students or crowds,” said the founder, requesting anonymity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Tuesday\u2019s edition of the AI Impact Summit<\/a> continued to see heavy footfall, with Abhishek Singh, additional secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity), declaring that the day saw 1.25 lakh visitors. Organizational chokeholds were reduced, after Day-1 of the summit saw widespread chaos, confusion among exhibitors and participants, and security personnel complaining about lack of clear information.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The disappointment among exhibitors could get even worse. Manish Kumar Agrawal, special commissioner of Delhi Police, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the entire venue will be closed from 4:30pm on Wednesday in preparation of a dinner hosted for key executives by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Modi is also set to deliver a keynote address on Thursday, for which all entries to the venue will remain closed until at least 11am. \u201cWe will be allowing the expo area to remain open until 8pm on Thursday and Friday in response to overwhelming footfall,\u201d Agrawal added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Visitor curbs could upset plans of many exhibitors, who have paid anywhere from \u20b9<\/span>25,000 to \u20b9<\/span>50 lakh for the five-day exhibition, where they hoped to meet a steady stream of foreign participants to collaborate with or even interested in early-stage investors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The expo features 600 startups and over 300 exhibitors overall, spread across a 70,000 square-metre space at Bharat Mandapam, the same venue that had hosted the Startup Mahakumbh last year in April, which had drawn 3,000 startups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the expo, a 1 sq metre startup pod costs \u20b9<\/span>25,000 a day, while a standard stall of around 55 sq metres comes for roughly \u20b9<\/span>15 lakh. A country pavilion of 200 sq metre costs companies \u20b9<\/span>50 lakh just for the floor space, excluding booth construction, audio-visuals, staffing, logistics, flights and accommodation. The total cost for exhibitors could easily double or triple their bills.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n